


Brooklyn

by hailingstars



Series: good kid [6]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Abandonment, Abandonment Issues, Adoption, Angst, Custody Battle, Emotional Manipulation, Sleepwalking, more psychological, not in court
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-06
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-04-11 18:19:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 28,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19115140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hailingstars/pseuds/hailingstars
Summary: After leaving Peter with Tony and months of no contact, May shows up in Peter's life again, interrupting Tony's plans to adopt him. Peter has to decide who he wants to live with, but soon learns the decision may really not be his.





	1. may's back

**Author's Note:**

> let me just say, this story was supposed to be posted days ago, but i just got over the worst cold/virus/whatever it was, idk whyyyy my body waited until it was nice outside to give me an illness but there it is 
> 
> please enjoy the on coming angst fest, this is the last multi chaptered story in this au before they all become one-shots 
> 
> ** there are a few other characters that might make an appearance in this story that I haven't tagged, that I will tag once I make the final decision if I need them or not, so please don't @ me if suddenly the tagged characters change

Summer break ended suddenly, but not dreadfully. 

Peter was ready for his alarm when it went off on the first morning of junior year. His eyes snapped open, he rolled out of bed without pressing snooze, and went directly to his shower. He let the warm water finish waking him up, then got dressed in the clothes he’d set out the night before, after drying off.

His hair was still wet when he clicked his watch around his wrist. It wasn’t really his watch. It was the same one Tony had let him borrow back in Malibu, but Peter hadn’t given it back and didn’t plan to. He liked that it was still Tony’s. He liked that it was also kind of his now, too. 

He pulled on his tennis shoes, grabbed his bookbag from his desk chair, and left his room in a hurry. 

Peter was ready for junior year. He was more than ready for it to be a new, fresh start, for it to be a much better year than the one that came before. 

Tony and Pepper were already up, moving around the kitchen. Tony was making breakfast, Pepper was behind her work laptop, but they were both talking fast at each other. A typical morning. Almost identical to yesterday. Still, it brought a smile to Peter’s face as he joined them in the kitchen.

“Up and ready with time to spare?” asked Tony. Peter ducked away when he tried to mess up his hair.

“You’ll mess it up and it’ll dry funny,” said Peter, as he grabbed a plate and piled it high with pancakes.   

“Your hair always looks funny,” said Tony. 

“Because you’re always messing it up.” 

“Don’t listen to him, Peter,” said Pepper. She shut her laptop and smiled at him. “You have lovely hair.” 

Peter sent Tony a look of triumph as he sat down with his food. Breakfast as usual. Same as the day before. Same banter. Same laughing, and Peter appreciated that. This wasn’t new anymore. It was familiar. They were family, even if it wasn’t technically official yet. 

When Peter was done with breakfast, he rinsed his plate off and put it in the dishwasher. He allowed Pepper to kiss him on the cheek and allowed Tony to pull him in a half-hug, which turned out to be a mistake. He held on to Peter’s forearm when he tried to bolt to the elevator.

“Not so fast,” said Tony. Peter suppressed a groan while Tony went to work on his shirt collar, straightening it up. “Straight home after school today, alright?”

Peter frowned, and there was a protest on his lips. They had an agreement. He was allowed to go Spider-Manning after the school day ended, as long as he maintained his grades, his spot on the Decathlon team and came back at a reasonable hour.

“Just for today,” said Tony. “We’re having a family dinner tonight. For your first day back, and we have some news.” 

“News?”

“Something to tell you.”

“Okay,” said Peter. He adjusted the strap of his bookbag and backed away from Tony, inching closer to the elevator. He looked at Pepper, then grinned. “Have you guys set a date?”

For the wedding, for moving forward with the adoption, either or both. Peter didn’t care. They were good things, and Peter could tell from the way Pepper’s face lit up that whatever they were going to tell him later was a good thing, something to look forward to, not something to dread. 

“It’s a surprise,” said Pepper. “You’ll find out at dinner.” 

Peter sighed and told them goodbye before disappearing into the elevator and riding it down to the ground level. Happy had the car waiting for him outside the doors to the lobby, and as Peter tossed himself into the backseat, his eyes fell on the fluffy cat air freshener clipped to the air vents. As it turned out, Tony’s watch wasn’t the only item that came back with them from Malibu. 

* * *

The hallways at Midtown were filled with reunion hugs, with everyone exchanging summer stories, and with excitement that only came on the first day. Peter knew by next week everyone would go back to hating Mondays and homework and the early alarms on their phones, so he enjoyed the atmosphere while it was still fresh.

He stood on his tippy toes and scanned through the crowd, looking for Ned or MJ, or at least someone he knew, but he couldn’t find anyone. People found him, though. People that’d never spoken to him before patted him on the shoulder, asked how his summer was, noticed him. 

It was nice, but he still just wanted to find Ned. They didn’t have any classes together until after lunch. 

Peter checked his watch and dropped his shoulders. He was running out of time, so instead of Ned, he found his locker and his first period class, instead. His shoes landed inside the classroom just as the bell rang. Technically, he was on time, but that didn’t stop his new teacher from narrowing her eyes at him as he found the only empty seat in the back of the classroom, next to Flash.

While Ms. Prince took attendance out loud, running through the first day obligation of putting names to faces, Peter busied himself with organizing his book, notebook, folder, pens. He’d been distracted when his name was called, but he still managed to put his hand in the air.

He wasn’t prepared for Flash, though.

“Actually, it’s Stark now, Ms. P,” said Flash. “Right, Pete?”

Peter glared at him. The adoption wasn’t a secret, at least not anymore, and personally, Peter feared for the life of the person who leaked that story to the media. If they ever were discovered, they probably wouldn’t survive the wrath of Pepper Potts. 

She’d been prepping press releases for the days following their day in court, signing the adoption papers. It’d been easier that way, but as Tony explained to him on the day it leaked, sometimes being a Stark meant people didn’t always have respect for privacy. 

“It’s Ms. _Prince_ ,” she told Flash. “I’m sure Peter is perfectly capable correcting me himself if he needs to.” 

“Parker,” said Peter. “It’s Parker.” 

Ms. Prince nodded and her eyes went back to her tablet. 

The thing was, Peter wasn’t sure how much long his last name would be Parker. It was up to him. That’s what Tony had said, after Peter asked if his last name was going to change just like his birth certificate would. He was debating it still, but never made much progress either way. Sometimes, the debate boiled down to thinking about what would hurt May more, changing his name to Stark, or keeping it the same as hers, to remind her of the child she left behind.

Then, he’d remember May didn’t care about him enough to be bothered about his last name, and he ended up back at square one. He was stalled, just like Tony was intentionally stalling the adoption process. 

“I just want to make sure you’re sure,” Tony had told him. “That you want this, for the right reasons.”

Peter didn’t know what the right reasons were and doubted they existed. There were no good reasons for him to be on his third family.

The rest of first period, he zoned out. He scribbled on the corner of his syllabus until the next bell rang, then gathered his things and bolted away from the classroom, away from Flash and his loud mouth that made him think about the stuff he tried not to think about.   

He couldn’t escape it, though. He didn’t know why he even tried, or why he woke up that morning with expectations of a great year when usually feeling that way was an indication that something was about to go seriously wrong. And it did. 

It always did.

On his way to his next class, he passed the front doors to the school. He saw her from the corner of his eye. He stopped, ignored the other students who’d bumped into him, and went back. Closer to the doors this time, closer to the little windows that allowed him to see out into the real world, he saw Aunt May. 

She stood next to her car. The same one she left him in. Her head was leaned in the window, and she was talking to someone sitting in the driver’s seat. 

Peter’s heart hammered in his chest, in his throat, and before he could think about it, he opened the double doors with a push and stormed outside. To do what, he didn’t know, but he needed her to see this. Somehow, he needed to let her know how angry he was that there was still a part of him that was happy to see her. 

He stopped on the sidewalk. May had turned, one hand on her car’s window, but both eyes on him. Dark, watery eyes, as if had been the one who’d been crying.

“What are you doing here?” asked Peter. Here at school, here in his life. She didn’t belong in either place, not anymore. 

“I wanted to see you,” said May. Her mouth moved up and down without any words coming out for several seconds, until she finally found some. “You look so different. So grown up –“ 

“Yeah,” said Peter. He crossed his arms, the way Tony did before lectures, and wondered what about him was different. Whether it was the California sun still in his hair and skin, the clothes he wore, but then he realized, it was just time. “It’s almost been a year.” 

She blinked, something like hurt flashed across her face, until it became blank again. “I know.” 

“You should’ve called,” said Peter. He looked back up at his school. His next class had probably already started, without him. “You didn’t have to just show up here.” 

“I didn’t want to go through Tony.”

“Why? He wouldn’t have stopped you.” 

“He wouldn’t have?” The question in her voice was doubt, but Peter couldn’t tell if it was doubt that was meant to passed off to him, or if it just lived inside May. Maybe both. Probably both. Things were rarely ever just one way anymore. “Maybe he wouldn’t have, but still, I just wanted to seeyou. I didn’t think you’d see me here, but now you have, I think maybe we should talk.”

Peter didn’t have anything he was ready to say to her, but he supposed he could stick around and hear what she had to say to him. “I’m listening.” 

“It’s all over the news that Tony’s adopting you. And I saw a video online,” she continued. “He called you his son on the red carpet.” 

“Yeah,” said Peter, after some uncomfortable silence. He didn’t know what she wanted to hear from him.

“He’s not your father, and him and Pepper aren’t your family.” 

He felt like the breath was knocked out of him, like he’d just been shot three times in the leg, but May wasn’t done yet. She was about to give the final blow.

“I feel like he’s stealing you away from me.” 

“He’s not doing anything,” said Peter. He surprised himself. At how strong his voice sounded, how certain his words were. “You gave me away.”

“No, I never wanted to do that. Do you think I wanted this to be permanent? That I wanted to sign papers and get lawyers involved? That was Tony’s plan.” She blinked again, only that time she looked ashamed, like the words came out but they weren’t supposed to, until her face went back to normal. It went back to being blank. “Look I know it was a mistake to come here. It was a bad idea. I’m going to call Tony, and set up a dinner or something, okay? Just don’t – don’t tell him I came here.” 

Peter didn’t say anything. He didn’t make any promises, but May waited for them. She stood in front of him meeting his stare for what felt like eternity before she told him goodbye and got back into her car.  He backed up closer to his school as he watched whoever was driving speed the car off into the distance.

He watched the road for a while after her car disappeared. His head was swimming with all the words that was just aimed at him, and how none of them were what they should’ve been, what she said whenever he dreamed up a scenario where she came back. 

There hadn’t been any love yous or missed you or apologies. Just words that didn’t make any sense, and a conversation he couldn’t believe he just had in the front yard of his high school, on a day that was supposed to be a fresh start. 

Peter didn’t go back to class. He only made it as far as the steps leading to the front door, where he sat down and wrung his hands through his hair, threatening to pull it all out. Even if he did, it wouldn’t hurt as bad May’s words did.

* * *

Peter stayed sitting on the steps in front of the school until Tony’s car pulled up and occupied the space May’s had just twenty minutes before. He’d sat there, turning the conversation over and over in his mind, then he found it. The one way he could hurt May as much as she’d hurt him.

He’d called Tony. 

He had answered on the first ring. “Peter, what’s wrong?” 

He hadn’t wasted time with hellos or questions about why he wasn’t in class. Tony had gotten right to the point, knew without explanation Peter would only call in the middle of the day if everything was alright.

“May’s back.”

“What do you mean May’s back?”

“She showed up at school,” Peter had told him, and still, he hated himself for the way his voice broke, the way it hung in the air for several seconds before Tony had said anything else, how it made Peter realize how much he wanted to cry now that it was safe. 

“Are you okay?” 

“I’m confused.”   

“I know, buddy, I’m confused too,” he’d said. “Do you want me to come get you, or do you think you can make it through the rest of the day?” 

He wanted to make it through the rest of the day. He wanted everything to be normal, and fresh, the way it was this morning before May had come and disrupted his life, for a second time. But there wasn’t any point in going back in. He wouldn’t be able to sit through class with May and her words rattling around in his mind, creating questions he needed Tony to answer.

“Come get me, please,” Peter had said.

He watched the car come to stop, and on his way to get inside, it hit him. Everything was ruined. The day, his year, and it’d barely even started.

Tony’s stare was on him as he shoved his bookbag on his feet and put his seatbelt on. He knew it well enough to know what his scrutiny felt like without looking, and he knew his silence well enough to know it meant he was waiting for Peter to speak.

“She said she didn’t want to sign any custody papers,” said Peter. He looked out into the road ahead of them but didn’t dare look at Tony. He pulled at some loose threads on his shirt. 

“Oh really, she did? She told you that?” asked Tony. Peter let his eyes creep over to the steering wheel. Tony was gripping it so hard his knuckles were turning white. “Did she tell you she just wanted to up and split? Leave in the middle of the night without saying anything to you about it?” 

“No,” said Peter, quiet.

His stare returned to his own hands, and he flinched when Tony hit the steering wheel and the car horn honked. This time, Peter waited for Tony to speak, enjoying the silence and wishing it would stay. He dreaded the revelation of any more secrets. He’d always known they existed. He always knew there was more to the story than Tony was willing to say, but now, he didn’t want to know. 

He just wanted to ignore it. 

“Damnit,” said Tony. “I – I shouldn’t have said that, I’m sorry Pete. I just – she just wanted to walk away and leave things up in the air and I couldn’t let her do that. I couldn’t let her leave you hanging. If she was leaving, I knew she wasn’t coming back, and I knew you’d need something definite.” 

“She did come back.” He sounded like a robot, one who whispered, one who wished he was lying. 

“Yep,” said Tony. “Look Peter, she came to me, in the dead of the night, asking if I took take you for a little awhile. I asked her how long, she couldn’t say. She didn’t know, but I did, or at least, I thought I did. It wouldn’t have been fair, right? For you to just get passed around every time she felt like coming back home, so I told her you could come stay with me, but we’d have to make it legal.” 

Peter thought about things that didn’t matter. He wondered which night that was, and how much time there was between May and Tony discussing his future and the day the papers were signed and she was gone, wondered about a world where he woke up and May was just… gone and Tony was left to explain to him that she might come back. Someday. 

He kicked at his bookbag, pushed it further into the floorboard and away from his legs. The car was starting to feel very small as he was griped with a new fear. 

“Tony I don’t want to go,” said Peter. “I want to stay with you, I can’t live-“

“You don’t have to go anywhere,” said Tony. “I’m not kicking you out.” 

“What if it’s not up to you?”

“It isn’t up to me, because it’s up to you. You’re almost sixteen years old. You’re old enough to decide who you want to live with, and there’s not a judge in this city that would force you to go back and live there after she signed away her rights and went months without contacting you.”

Peter looked at Tony. He wanted to believe him, but fear couldn’t be reasoned away with logic.

“I would never let that happen, for someone to force you to be somewhere you didn’t want to be, okay?” Tony’s voice was so confident, Peter nodded his head, though he was still filled with dread and doubt. 

He leaned back against his seat, and Tony started the car. 

“What’s the news?” asked Peter. He couldn’t wait until dinner. He couldn’t take anymore surprises, and Tony must’ve sensed it, because he answered. 

“Our attorney called,” said Tony, as he pulled out into the street. “We have a date. For your adoption hearing.” 

“Oh.”

He tried to imagine a world where he heard that at dinner, for the first time, after getting through his first day of junior year unscratched. He couldn’t. That world seemed so far away.


	2. greg

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys!! I know it's been forever, I took some time off writing cause I was feeling super burnt out on it, but im back now and the rest of the updates for this story shouldn't take as long, im thinking it'll update like once a week!! I hope you enjoy!!

_Dude where are you_

Peter blinked at his cellphone, then let it fall from his hand and into the folds of his comforter. His focus, his ears, belonged with Tony. He was pacing back and forth in the dining room. His heart was hammering around in his chest, fast and strong, and every word out of his mouth was venomous and sharp.

He wasn’t supposed to be listening. Tony had sent him to his room, but he’d been so worked up, he must’ve forgotten that spiders hear everything.

“You were depressed and overwhelmed when you left,” Tony snapped into his phone. “But you weren’t this stupid.”

His phone lit up with another text from Ned.

_Are you still at school?_

Peter checked the time. If he were still at Midtown, he’d be at lunch, which meant Ned was wondering around the cafeteria, looking for him. Suddenly guilty, he picked up his phone and sent a quick message.

_No sorry, had to go home, explain later_

He dropped his phone back into the sheets.

“Damn right you changed, you used to want what was best for Pete, suddenly that’s gone out the window, hasn’t it?”

Best for him. He thought back over the past couple of months, over the time he’d spent with Tony and Pepper. They were what was best for him, but only because May abandoned him. Best for him would’ve been May sticking around. Best for him would’ve been a phone call when he was stuck in the hospital with a broken heart and a gunshot wound.

“No, that’s not what I said,” said Tony. His voice was getting louder, and Peter wondered if he’d still be able to hear him without his spidey powers. “Of course you can see him but you can’t just show up at his school like that, without a warning and without giving him a chance to prepare.”

More pacing, more aggressive footsteps that were absorbed into the carpet but were still powerful enough to echo around in Peter’s ears.

“Well he obviously did see you.”

Peter sat up on his bed. He couldn’t listen to it anymore, especially when it was easy to fill in the blanks and come to the conclusion May was just giving Tony the same story she’d given Peter back at school. He crossed his room and searched his desk drawers for his headphones, the big ones that he’d never taken out of the box.

When he first moved in with Tony, his bedroom came stocked with expensive things Tony assumed a teenager would want. Fancy electronics, a new computer, a giant TV with every video game console imaginable. Most of them he never used, not once, but that was about to change.

He ripped the headphones from the protective plastic and connected them to his phone. He put them over his ears, turned up the volume, and collapsed on his bed, burrowing his head under the pillow.

Music drown out the noise of Tony on the phone, of his footsteps and his heart, and Peter tried to get lost in his own thoughts. They weren’t a much better place to be, so instead he just shut his eyes and hoped that sleep would come. It never did. He didn’t know how long he’d been lying there, hiding under his pillow, when he was coaxed up by a hand shaking his shoulder.

He sat up again, turned around, and slid the headphones down to rest on his neck.

“How are you feeling?” asked Tony. His face was creased with worry, and the anger that was in his voice earlier had completely disappeared, like magic.

“I don’t know.”

“Yeah, it’s a lot to process,” said Tony. He looked down at the sheets, then back up at Peter. “Listen, they want to come over for dinner on Saturday. I told her I’d have to check our schedules first, so now I’m asking you, are we busy?”

“They?”

“May,” said Tony. “And her boyfriend.”

Peter frowned and wondered how and when that had happened. How long did it take for her to find a new life after she abandoned her old one in New York? He wondered if she thought about Ben, or if she’d forgotten about him, too.

“I can tell her no, or that we’re busy, and we can put it off until you’re ready,” Tony offered. He looked at him and waited for an answer, and Peter, for all his wishing to be old enough to make his own choices, now wanted Tony to decide for both of them.

“No, she should come,” said Peter. He didn’t really want her to, and he definitely didn’t want her to bring her boyfriend, but he figured that was the grown-up decision. “We should probably all talk, right?”

“Sure, buddy,” said Tony, “I’ll let her know.”

Peter slid the headphones back over his ears as he watched Tony leave his room and tried not to think about the way his voice had dipped when he had called him buddy. That usually never meant anything good. That nickname was reserved for distressing, sad moments, but Peter didn’t feel distressed or sad.

He felt nothing at all.

That was a choice he made. He wasn’t going to allow May coming back to mess with his plans.

There were four full days between then and Saturday, and he saw no reason why he couldn’t just pretend she was still gone, and everything was normal.

He pressed play on his song and disappeared back under his pillow.

Saturday. He’d deal with it on Saturday.

Except pretending that nothing had changed got pretty difficult the next morning at school. Ned waited for him by his locker, and as Peter unzipped his bookbag and put his combination in, he asked his questions. Peter didn’t have a chance to answer any of them before he went on to the next.

Finally, he ended with, “There’s this rumor going around that you were yelling at some lady outside the front doors.”

“What?” asked Peter, his bookbag swung in his hands, still half-open. He shoved his textbook inside and shut his locker, hard. “I wasn’t yelling!”

Everyone else in the hallway froze, stopped talking, and let Peter’s declaration waft around in the air. Heads turned. All eyes were on the two of them, as Peter struggled to zip his bookbag and shoulder it. Once he had it secured on his back, Peter stared back at his classmates, flicking his eyes between them, daring them to voice their own questions. No one said anything, and after a couple of long seconds, everyone went back to their own business, to their own conversations.

“You mean like you’re not yelling right now?” Ned said, in a quiet than usual voice. “So, who was the lady? That you were talking loudly at?”

“May,” said Peter. “She’s back.”

Ned’s chin dropped, and he opened his mouth to say something, but the warning bell cut him off. Peter brushed past him, eager to get to class and distract himself with school work.

*

The rest of the week zipped by and days passed exactly the way Peter wanted them to.  
With May pushed into the very back of his thoughts, he could focus on school. His classes were fun and challenging and required the perfect amount of attention to keep his mind from wandering down the path Peter didn’t want to go. They were the perfect distraction. They kept him busy.

At lunch and in the halls, stares and whispers followed him, but that didn’t bother Peter like they used to. People would stare. People would entertain themselves by making up stories about what they thought was going on in his life, simply because he was about to be a Stark. He was used to it.

Besides, if it ever got to be too much, he had Spider-Man. He’d put on his mask and stop a few robberies and the universe would feel alright. He’d wander back to the penthouse when it got close to curfew. Going home was never a chore. Going home after a good, productive patrol was sometimes better than the patrol in itself.

Tony or Pepper or both of them would always be there, waiting with dinner and waiting to hear about his evening out on the streets Spider-Manning. Dinner was filled with talks about school and the possibility of the rogue Avengers returning and some guy Pepper had to fire on the spot after he dared to drop a string of inappropriate comments.

They never brought up May, and Peter hoped that meant they were all on the same page, until the morning before the dinner arrived.

Peter had thought he could avoid it. He stalled around in the hallway for as long as he could, playing with the strap of his bookbag and waiting for the right second to make a run for the elevator, but he wasn’t so lucky. He was just a few feet away from the elevator doors when he was halted by Tony’s yell.

“Hold it right there.”

He froze, his arm outstretched and his fingers so close to the elevator call button he could almost feel the cool steel on his fingertips.

“Where are you going?” asked Tony. He marched over from the kitchen and stood in front of him.

“Uh,” said Peter. He let his hand fall away from the call button. It was a lost cause now that the questioning had began. “I’m gonna go hang out at Ned’s. Then do some patrolling.”

“Okay, well dinner is at seven, so try to be back sometime before then, alright?”

“Oh.”

“Oh?”

“I just, I didn’t think we were still doing that.”

Tony narrowed his eyes and had that same funny expression he wore the night Peter had told him he wanted to be adopted. Gears turned behind his eyes. Peter was a puzzle he was trying to solve.

“What do you mean?”

Peter shrugged, like it wasn’t a big deal, like thinking about this dinner didn’t make his world spin. “I just figured she’d probably want to call and cancel, and you haven’t said anything about it all week I just thought maybe we decided it wasn’t worth the trouble when she’s probably not even going to show up.”

“She sounded pretty certain on the phone.” His expression didn’t change, and Peter shifted his feet under the scrutiny, then made a big deal about checking his watch.

“I told Ned I’d be over there in thirty minutes.”

“Okay, but six, alright? Be back at six.”

“Yeah, okay,” said Peter, nodding his head up and down, and finally jamming his fingers against the button that would bring him his escape.

*

Peter wasn’t back at six. He wasn’t even back at seven.

He stayed sitting on a building in Queens, ignoring Tony’s worried texts and eating a second sandwich from Delmar’s until so much time had ticked away, it’d be impossible for him to get back to the penthouse by seven.

His phone buzzed in his pocket as he rode the elevator up to the penthouse at exactly 7:12 PM. He ignored it, and when the doors slid open, they revealed Tony standing in the foyer, with his cellphone pressed up against his ear. He pulled it away and dropped it in his pocket when his eyes fell, and narrowed, on Peter.

He gave him a look that made Peter want to jump back inside the elevator and ride it back down to the lobby.

“Where have you been?” asked Tony. “Why weren’t you answering your phone?”

“I know I’m late –“

“I don’t care that you’re late, jesus, kid, I thought something might have happened to you.”

“I’m sorry, I –“ Peter stopped, thought about what he was going to say, then changed his mind. He couldn’t say he was just trying to hurt May, not get Tony worried, aloud, without acknowledging that was exactly what he’d hoped to do. “Lost track of time.”

“Uh huh,” said Tony. He grabbed Peter’s arm and walked him towards the dining room, where Pepper, May and a man with dark hair and a sweater vest stood around the table. May’s new boyfriend, Peter guessed.

He took one look at him and knew May could do better. Anyone that wasn’t Ben wasn’t good enough, but that speed his thoughts off into a dangerous place, a place he spent the week trying to avoid. Maybe sweater vest was good enough for this version of May. Maybe if Ben were still alive, he’d be too good for this version of her, the one who’d abandon him.

If Ben were still alive, these questions wouldn’t matter, because May never would have left and they’d all still be a family. Seeing May like this, nervous and standing next to a sweater vest, made it clear that family was dead. That family was buried with Ben.

The smell of whatever Tony and Pepper decided to serve for dinner assaulted his sense, brought bile to this throat. Those sandwiches from Delmar’s were making a comeback.

The edges of May’s figure blurred as she stepped closer to him and the noise in the room amped up. His thoughts, the ones he didn’t want to think, couldn’t be pushed back anymore, and each step she took closer to him brought more of them rattling to the surface, until they exploded all at once.

May left him, she came back, and she was ruining everything.

Peter needed to run, needed to get away from May and to his bedroom, before he had to sink to his knees and put his head between his legs to get the noise to stop.

A weight pressed on his shoulder, and Peter released a shaky breath. His world came back into focus, the noise in the room went back to normal, as Tony’s grip tightened. Peter couldn’t figure if Tony was offering him his support, or if he was holding onto him, as if he were a small child and May was about to snatch him and run.

“Peter,” said May. She shuffled her feet as she looked him up and down. “It’s, um, so good to see you again. I know last time we saw each other is was, well a disaster, and that was my fault. I’m sorry. I should’ve known better to have just showed up like that.”

Peter blinked at her. “Okay.”

He didn’t know where or how to file that information, but he had a flashback to the ferry disaster, to Tony shouting at him that sorry didn’t cut it. He wished his words were as forceful as Tony’s, maybe then he’d be voicing them unless of enduring the awkward silence that fell over all of them.

“I have someone I’d like you to meet,” said May. The man wearing a sweater vest pushed his glasses up from his nose and walked over to where they stood. “This is Greg. We’ve been seeing each other.”

Greg stuck his hand out for Peter to shake, but he only stared at it. “May’s told me so much about you. It’s good to meet you, Pete.”

“Peter,” he corrected. He didn’t know this man well enough for him to come at him and start calling him nicknames.

“Oh, sorry,” said Greg. He wiped his hand on his khakis and pretended that’s what he’d been going for along. “Peter. I hear you’re on the Decathlon team at school. How’s that going?”

Peter stared at him and wondered what else this stranger knew about him. That didn’t seem fair. May got to walk out of his life and spread his personal information to people he didn’t even know.

“You’re a pretty quiet boy, huh?” asked Greg. “You know in all those stories May told about you, she left the impression you were pretty talkative.”

The bile in his throat came back, the walls in the apartment were getting smaller, and Peter couldn’t take it anymore. He needed to run, but since Tony’s hand was still on his shoulder, he did the next best thing. He turned and looked up at him.

“I feel sick,” he told him, and watched Tony’s face crease. “Can I go lay down in my room?”

Tony’s hand moved from his shoulder to his forehead. “Well you do feel a little warm. Yeah, uh, yeah you should rest.”

With a mumbled goodbye to just May, Peter bolted to the hallway, silently thanking the stars for Tony’s willingness to go along with his lie.

He had FRIDAY dim the lights in his room while he laid face up on his bed. He listened to the conversation that was happening around the dinner table. Most of the time, Tony’s voice was absent, and it was just Pepper keeping the conversation going. She was engaged to Tony. She was used to giving second, third, and fifteenths chances.

She waited until May and Greg got into the elevator and the doors slid shut on them to voice her real opinion. She hated Greg. She called him shady and wondered out loud to Tony why someone like May was doing with a guy like him.

Peter turned on his side. His aunt, and the shady sweater vest. Together. It should’ve made him angry, but Peter just felt numb.

*

When Peter wandered down to the workshop later that night, it was abnormally quiet. Usually it was filled with the sounds of hammers, metal, blow torches, or Tony muttering at DUM-E. Not that night.

Peter stepped out of the elevator and found Tony sitting at the workstation, spinning a pen through his fingers, and studying a pile of papers in front of him. His head jerked up as Peter walked closer.

“Dropping the sick act, huh?”

Peter shrugged and lifted himself up onto the workstation with the backs of his hands. “We both knew I’m not really sick.”

“Yep, and we’re not the only ones,” said Tony. He dropped the pen and stared at him. “Pete this was your decision, if you didn’t want to do this, all you had to do was tell me and I would’ve cancelled. No one wants to push you into doing anything you’re not ready for.”

“I know,” said Peter. Tony had made that perfectly clear. “I just, I thought I was ready, that I should be ready, at least.” He looked down at his hands, then back at Tony. “Are you mad?”

“No.”

“Disappointed?”

“No,” said Tony. “I’m just sad, Peter. I understand you’re hurt and I don’t know how to help you.”

“You help.”

Tony gave him a pained smile. One that communicated very clearly that he didn’t believe him.

“Remember when you took me to the house in Malibu for the first time?”

“And I made you climb up on the roof in a down pour and you fell?”

Peter laughed. At the time, he felt like it was the end of the world. He fell off the roof and he’d broken his phone and that was his last physical lifeline to his old life. It’d felt like everything. It’d felt big and miserable, but now, it seemed so small, so far away.

“But then you built an actual Death Star to make up for it.”

“Yep, and I’ve regretted it ever since,” said Tony. “You’re gonna blow us all up with that thing one day.”

Peter rolled his eyes but kept his smile. He’d been miserable in the workshop the day they built the Death Star. Looking back now, he missed it. Even if he had fallen off the roof, it’d been a fun getaway, and Tony had tried his best. He was still trying his best, even if he didn’t always know what to do.

“Maybe tonight we can build a lightsaber.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Why not?” asked Peter, with a whine. He kicked his feet against the side of the workstation but regretted it. The dramatics weren’t worth the pain shooting through his foot, and the look on Tony’s face told him he wasn’t going to be offering an explanation. “If we can’t build a lightsaber, can we build a TIE fighter that flies around and shoots things?”

“We? You’re sick, remember? You need your bedrest.”

Peter titled his head at him. “Tony come on, you know that was fake.”

Tony gave him a hard, studying look, then sat up straighter. “Ok I’ll make you a deal. I’ll help you make your toy –“

“-it’s not a toy.”

“I’ll help you make your remote-control spaceship,” Tony mended, but somehow, it didn’t improve upon the previous word choice. “If you stick around the penthouse tomorrow.”

Peter deflated and slouched where sat on the workstation. Sundays were supposed to be free days, and he sort of already planned on hanging out with Ned and MJ and spending some extra time as Spider-Man. It was a huge sacrifice for just a TIE fighter.

“You’re grounding me?”

“No, you haven’t done anything wrong,” said Tony. “It’s a suggestion, cause you need to relax a little bit. You’ve been running yourself to death all week, you need to chill out and think through some things.”

Thinking about things was exactly what Peter was trying to avoid with all his homework and Spider-Manning and talks about TIE fighters. He didn’t have to say it out loud. Tony already knew, or he wouldn’t be offering him this deal.

Peter didn’t know if he was capable of slowing down long enough to process, of feeling something instead of feeling numb, but he accepted Tony’s deal, anyway. He told himself it was for the TIE fighter, and because Ned would never let him forget it if he knew he had the opportunity to build more Tony Stark approved Star Wars gadgets and didn’t take it. He told himself lies, because it felt better than acknowledging the truth.

That May was back, and that was a fact that was getting harder and harder to ignore.


	3. something simple

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just saw far from home, and oh my god, go see it if you haven't already!! 
> 
> enjoy the chapter!!

Peter laid faceup on his carpet and watched his new TIE fighter fly around his bedroom. It was set to automatic, so it zipped around and soared through the air unprompted from the remote Tony helped him design. Occasionally, it shot out blasts of water, and each time Peter thought about what could’ve been.

He’d wanted lasers. Tony insisted on making the blasters simple water guns. 

“Safety first,” he’d recited, and that had made Peter roll his eyes. 

Tony seemed to only consider safety whenever he or Pepper were involved, and besides that, Peter would’ve settled for laser lights, but apparently those weren’t safe, either. Something about eyesight and going blind and a lot of other safety propaganda Peter hadn’t been paying attention to.

He checked the time on his phone. It still wasn’t even noon yet, and he was bored, thoroughly looking forward to tomorrow morning when he could at least go to school. His eyes shifted back towards the TIE fighter, zipping around near his ceiling. It was pretty cool, Ned would have a meltdown when he saw it, but in that moment, Peter felt like he’d gotten the bad end of the deal. 

Maybe a TIE fighter replica wasn’t worth sitting around home all day, thinking about things he didn’t want to think about. 

He pushed himself up off the floor and wondered if it’d really be such a terrible thing to back out of his deal with Tony. He didn’t know if Tony would ground him in any real way. He hadn’t ever in the past, but he wasn’t sure that even matter. He feared the man’s disappointment more than he feared his wrath.

Peter pursed his lip. He supposed it was up to what he feared most. Was it the place his mind and his heart would take him if he gave his brain too much time to think, or Tony’s look of disappointment? With a sigh, he grabbed his shoes from his closet, pulled them on, and left his bedroom.

He expected his escape to be easy. Tony wasn’t home. He had some meeting to attend, something regarding the Avengers and government stuff, and that had made Peter hopeful. He could go out and be back again, before Tony ever found out, but he shouldn’t have been so optimistic. 

Pepper was still home, and she was planted between him and the elevator, wearing a smile and a raised eyebrow. 

“Where are you going?” she asked. 

“Umm, I just,” said Peter, then let out a breath. “Nowhere.” 

“I thought so,” said Pepper. “Tony told me about your deal. He bet you’d try to be out here by eleven, but I had more faith. I said one.”

Peter frowned. He didn’t know what it meant that Tony expected him to break their deal but made it anyway.

“I was just about to attempt baking this cake I saw last night on a cooking show,” said Pepper. “It’ll probably turn into a disaster, but maybe you’d like to help?”

“Yeah, sure,” said Peter. He didn’t have anything better to do, since he was stuck at the penthouse all day, so he followed her into the kitchen. 

As it turned out, baking a cake with Pepper was the perfect distraction, even if it did turn into a disaster, just as she said it would. Pepper had more experience with business and managing then she did with a kitchen, and Peter had more experience working with tools and punching bad guys. 

By the time they were putting the cake in the oven, the kitchen looked like the airport had after the confrontation between Iron Man and Captain America. A complete mess. Cake batter was slouched into Peter’s shirt, flour covered the kitchen counter, and was sprinkled throughout Pepper’s hair. 

Pepper wiped her hands off on a cloth after she set the timer, and sighed. “Well that’s it, that was the hard put, right?” 

“Let’s hope so,” said Peter, with a laugh. He climbed up on one of the stools and started drawing with his finger in the spilled flour. “What made you decide to bake a cake, anyway?”

“Oh,” said Pepper. “I don’t know. I was thinking I could bake something next week for when your aunt comes over for dinner.” 

“I wouldn’t worry about that. She probably won’t be back.” 

“Why won’t she?”

Peter shifted on the stool and lifted his finger from the flour drawing. Because he didn’t want her too. Because last night he’d made that very clear by faking an illness. He didn’t want to say any of that out loud, though, so instead he simply shrugged, and went back to work on his masterpiece. 

“I think she’ll be back,” said Pepper. “Do you think she would’ve come to dinner after doing what she did, knowing Tony Stark would be there be glaring at her the whole time, if she wasn’t serious?”

“It’s not like she came back alone. She had _Greg_.”

“That was… regrettable.”

“You hate him,” said Peter. He titled his head at her, trying to see if he could see the truth on her face, trying to determine if she would lie.

“It isn’t that I _hate_ him,” said Pepper. She was suddenly poised and using her press conference voice and was forgetting that she had flour in her hair and that Peter could hear through the walls. “I just find him a little odd, and he isn’t the point.”

“I just don’t want her to come back,” admitted Peter. “I don’t want things to change. Everything was just starting to be good and feel… normal. Now everything’s all messed up again.”

“I know,” said Pepper. She picked a piece of dried cake batter on the shoulder of Peter’s shirt and let her hand rest there. Peter looked up at Pepper as she spoke. “I’m so sorry you’re life keeps getting interrupted like this, but I think you’ll regret it if you don’t take this opportunity to reconnect with her. I know forgiveness is hard, but when it’s for people you love, it’s worth it.”

Peter looked away, put his attention back in the flour, slide his thumb through it, crossing out all his hard work. “But what if she leaves again?”

“Then she’ll be the one with regrets, and you’ll always have me and Tony.” 

He bit the inside of his mouth, hoping Pepper wouldn’t catch the tremble in his voice. “I just, I don’t know how to forgive.”

“You start with something simple,” said Pepper. She lifted his chin up with hand and smiled at him. “Like being on time for dinner.” 

He gave her a small smile back. She made it seem so simple. That everything might fall into place as long he showed just a tiny bit of effort. 

He helped her clean off the counters and wash the dishes. He was ringing a cloth of soapy, warm water when the oven timer dinged, and Pepper put on the oven mitts. She took out the cake, if it could be called a cake. It was a mess. Just like the kitchen had been, but they smiled in triumph anyway. It was their mess, and they didn’t care what it looked like.

After it cooled, they applied the icing haphazardly and generously, and once they were done, they ate icing out of the container with spoons. 

That was how Tony found them when he came back home from his meeting. He looked at the carpet as he walked, his jaw was set tight, until he looked up and saw him and Pepper. They sat next to their disaster cake, looking guilty, with spoons full of icing popped into their mouths. 

His jaw went loose as his mouth split into a grin, and he undid his tie as he joined them in the kitchen. He pulled a spoon out from the drawer, stood behind them, and said, “This better be chocolate.” 

* * *

Peter was up on the ceiling, in Pepper’s home office, his head hanging upside down and his eyes watching Tony. He was sat behind Pepper’s desk, so focused on the screen in front of him and the papers that lay across the computer’s keyboard, he didn’t notice Peter clinging to the ceiling. 

With a grin, Peter let go, fell through the air, and landed on his feet with a thump. Tony jumped in the desk chair, and it rolled backwards. 

“Hey Tony,” said Peter.  

“Can’t you enter the room like a normal person?” asked Tony, with a breath. He rolled the chair back up to the desk.

“I had to get you back for putting icing in my hair. It took forever to get out.” Peter walked over to where Tony sat, and stood on his tippy toes, trying to see what he was working on. He grabbed the top paper from the pile in front of Tony. 

“It did not,” said Tony. He snatched the paper away from him, put it with the rest of them, and stuffed them into a drawer out of sight. “So, what do you want? You’re wearing that ‘I’m about to ask for something ridiculous face.’” 

Peter frowned. “I don’t have that face.” 

“Yes, you do, it’s your natural expression. So, come on. Out with it.” 

“It’s not ridiculous,” said Peter, with a shrug. “I was just going to ask for permission to break our deal.” 

Tony gave him a dead look. 

“But it’s for something good!” 

“I’m listening…”

“I was just gonna go swing over and see May real fast.” 

“Real fast?” Tony questioned. He leaned back in the chair and raised an eyebrow at him. “That doesn’t make any sense. Last night you didn’t want to see her at all.”

“I’m going to invite her to dinner next weekend,” said Peter. His statement didn’t do anything to erase the confusion on Tony’s face, so he elaborated further. “Pepper and I had a conversation.” 

“And now it makes sense.” Tony looked at Peter for what felt like hours. HE could hear the clock ticking, time winding down, before Tony finally reached a decision. “Okay, yeah, let’s go. I’ll drive you.”   

Tony stood up from his chair and got half-way to the door before he realized Peter wasn’t following him. His feet stayed planted on the carpet.

“I wanted to go by myself,” said Peter. “As Spider-Man.” 

Tony looked at him, studied him. “I’m sure whatever conversation you had with Pepper, playing head games with your aunt wasn’t part of it.”

“I’m not playing games,” said Peter, but maybe he was. 

So maybe he needed to see what May’s reaction to him as Spidey would be. He didn’t see why that was a problem, why that was somehow unreasonable. He wasn’t the one on trial. He wasn’t the one who needed to be tested, and he wasn’t the one who left his family behind. 

She was.

“Okay,” said Tony. It wasn’t a strong okay. Definitely not certain the way Tony’s words normally were. “Back in two hours, alright?”

“Yeah, of course,” said Peter. He moved from his spot on the carpet but didn’t make it past Tony. He stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. 

“Peter,” he told him. “I love you. I know we don’t really say that. I never heard it from my dad so it doesn’t come natural, but the books have been saying that’s it’s really – “ 

 “Tony,” said Peter. He had to interrupt him, because he was rambling. Peter knew that as a sign of him feeling awkward. “I love you, too.” 

Tony nodded his head up and down a few times, then released his grip on his shoulder. “Be safe.”

“Yeah.” 

Peter left Tony behind in Pepper’s office with a smile. He hadn’t heard those specific words in a long time and didn’t know he needed them from Tony. He knew Tony loved him without him saying it. Tony worked a lot better with actions than he did with words, but still, there was something about hearing it.  

He hustled into his room, threw on his spidey suit, and walked out on to his balcony. The city was alive under him, and as he stood up on that ledge, ready to shoot a web and head off, he took a deep breath to steady himself, to tell himself he was ready for this confrontation, 

It was a lie. He wasn’t anywhere near ready.  

* * *

Peter stuck to the side of a small townhouse in Brooklyn and peered through the window.

His aunt May was busy in the kitchen, making tea and listening to the radio. Maybe it was an intrusion to her privacy to watch her like that, but all these months he’d been wondering about her life without him. Now that he saw it, he knew it was very mundane. Almost normal. Just making tea, on a Sunday afternoon, like she didn’t have a dead family to grieve.

He supposed that wasn’t fair. His life away from her hadn’t always been stormy weather. He’d had his share of both fun and mundane, but still, he would have at least liked to catch her looking a bit sad.

It would’ve made forgiveness, or at least, the start of forgiveness, a lot easier for him. 

Peter gently tapped on the window, and watched as May startled, not quite as badly as Tony had earlier, but it was enough for her to drop her cup of tea on floor. It shattered by her feet. She didn’t care about that, though. She couldn’t have. Her attention was completely focused on Peter.

“Peter,” she said, after stepping over the broken china, and opening the window. Her heart was still beating fast, faster now, even. “What are you doing here?” 

He stuck one leg through the window as May backed up, ducked his head through, and then eventually, his whole body. Peter landed on the floor, pulled his mask off, letting his brown hair fly out and stick up in wild directions.

“Aren’t you happy to see me?” 

“What?” asked May. There was a shake in her voice, like shocked offense, like the question was ridiculous. “I just wasn’t expecting you to show up, like this.” 

“You mean you weren’t expecting Spider-Man.” 

“I wasn’t expecting a spider-boy crawling up through my window, no.” She sounded annoyed. The same way she used to sound when Peter left his bookbag on the floor, or his shoes by the front door. It’s how he knew there was no malice in it. It felt normal, but Peter knew that feeling was a lie too.   

“Well I’m Spider-Man,” said Peter. “To see me you have to see him.”

“Okay,” she said. She blinked at him a couple of times, and a few awkward seconds of staring followed before she shook out of her supposed trance. “We should talk. Let me clean this up, then I can make you some tea.” 

“I don’t drink tea,” said Peter. He watched she move across the kitchen floor and grab a broom and dust pan that had been standing against the fridge.

“Okay well, how about a soda?” 

Peter nodded, and made himself at home at the kitchen table, while May swept up the broken tea cup. He looked around the kitchen. It was bigger than the one they had back at their Queens apartment, and they were photos of her Greg attached to the freezer-fridge combo unit. At the beach. At a monument in DC. In front of the Eiffel Tower.

He shook his head and watched her sweep instead. It reminded him of when he was younger. She cleaned up his messes all the time. He wondered when that became too much for her. He wondered if she knew her last time cleaning one of his messes was her last time.

May tossed the dust pan filled with broken china into the trach can and opened the fridge, pulling out two cans of Coke. The regular brand. They used to strictly by the off-brand. It had more favor, they used to say, because they couldn’t really admit that every penny counted after Ben died.   

She sat down across the table from him and pushed one of the cans toward. 

“Thanks,” he told her, popping it open, at the same time she opened hers.

They both took a drink. They both stared at each other, and Peter imagined they were both playing the same game, winding down the time until the other knew what to say. 

“It’s a nice house,” offered Peter. 

May gave a small, hallow laugh. It almost felt genuine. Almost. “Not as nice as what I’m sure you’re used to now, but Greg has a nice job. Between the two of us, we can afford it.” 

She didn’t mention it helped that she didn’t have a mutant nephew to feed now, but that was the truth. Even if neither of them wanted to say it out loud.

“Are you feeling better?” 

“What?” 

“Last night you said you weren’t feeling well,” said May, tracing the rim of her soda can with her finger. 

“Yeah, way better.”  

“Peter,” she said, with a slight. “Why did you come here?”

“Are you back for good?” he blurted out the question. It was why he was there. To ask that question, because he needed to know if he was going to show up on time for dinner. He needed her word, even if it wasn’t worth much anymore.

“We bought a house. We’re not going anywhere.”

We. Her and Greg, not May and Peter.

She reached across the table to take his hands, but he withdrew. He stood up from the table, and the legs of the chair he sat in scrapped against the floor. 

“I just came over to invite you to dinner next weekend.” 

You. Singular. As in just her, not her and Greg, but Peter figured she wouldn’t get it.

“I’ll be on time, and I won’t get sick.”   

“Okay,” said May. Her voice was soft, understanding, and he couldn’t tell if it was genuine. “We’ll be there.” 

Peter nodded and walked back towards the open window. He put one leg up, on the window seal, and was about to lift his body up and out when May’s voice stopped him.

“We’re going to be a family again. I promise. I’m here for good.” 

He leapt out the window, and caught himself with a web, falling gracefully to the ground. His feet hit when he realized he probably should have said something to that, but he shrugged it off. He didn’t have anything to say. 

Peter made it back home before his two hours were up. 

He changed back into his regular clothes, and found Tony and Pepper lounging on the couch, watching a movie with a bucket of popcorn between them. He swiped it and put it down on his lap as he collapsed on the spot between his parents.

“How did it go?” asked Tony. Some old movie was playing on the TV, one Peter actually hadn’t seen before, and he was already sucked in. Tony threw a piece of popcorn at him, then once he gained his attention, repeated his question.

“It was fine,” said Peter. “She’s coming over for dinner next weekend.” 

Pepper gave his arm a squeeze and smiled at him. Tony ruffled his hair and stole the bucket of popcorn, and Peter realized what he should’ve told May. He didn’t need another family. He had a pretty perfect one already.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come and hang out on Tumblr 
> 
> [hailing-stars](https://hailing-stars.tumblr.com)


	4. on hold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's the next chapter! please enjoy!

The next time May and Greg came over for dinner, Peter sat next to Tony, and focused on his food while he was forced to listen to Greg recite the story about how him and May met for the first time. The story was being repeated for Peter’s benefit, since he’d been pretending to be sick in his bedroom the first time, but it was still Peter’s second time hearing it. 

He picked at his food with his fork. He supposed it was good Greg didn’t know he could hear through walls. 

The story was just as gross as the first time, and made Peter think maybe he really was getting sick, for real that time.

Greg had been the leader of some support group for grieving spouses. May had been assigned to his group, and the rest was tragedy. And more than just a little messed up. Maybe that’s what Pepper had decided she didn’t like about him. That he used his position as a group leader to get dates.

That was only Greg’s volunteer work, though. He made that point perfectly clear. His real job was more important than helping people process their grief. He spent the nearly the entire dinner telling them about it, and by the time the evening was over, and Tony was pushing both him and May into the elevator, Peter had barely spoken a word to his aunt.

Fine with him. It’d been her choice to bring him along. 

“I’m taking it back,” said Pepper, as she slammed dishes into the dishwasher. “I do hate him.” 

At least Pepper’s comment had been enough to put a small smile on Peter’s face when his head hit the pillow that night. 

Next time May and Greg came around, Pepper was armed with a plan, one that was obvious to Peter and Tony and probably even May, but left Greg clueless. They sped through dinner, and when they were finished, Pepper threw Tony under the bus. 

“Tony,” she said, “you should take Greg down and show him around the workshop, I’ll sure he’d love to see it.” 

“I would rather- “Tony stopped dead after catching Pepper’s look. He changed his tone. “I mean, I would rather show him around the bigger one at the compound, but this one will have to do.”

Tony directed Greg to the elevator, but the way he walked made it seem sort of like he was being sent to his own execution. They both stepped into the elevator, both looking a bit awkward, and when the doors slid shut, Pepper turned her attention to Peter and May. She smiled at them, and Peter knew what was coming next. 

“Peter,” said Pepper. “Has May seen your room yet?”   

“No…” 

“Why don’t you go show her, while I clean up and get the dessert ready?” 

Dessert wasn’t a cake. Pepper had brought a carton of ice cream from some gourmet place down the street, because they’d been given up on baking. They were disasters in the kitchen. Somethings just couldn’t be helped. 

“Okay,” said Peter, and him and May headed down the hall. Just like Tony, Peter didn’t see the point in arguing or complaining about it, even though he rather stay and help Pepper with dessert than give May a tour of the penthouse. Pepper’s word was law. 

“Wow,” said May, as they stepped into his bedroom, and she looked around. There was something sad on her face. Peter wasn’t sure what that meant, but then suddenly she blinked, and it was gone, and it didn’t matter anymore. 

“Yeah,” said Peter, sheepishly. “Uh, Tony overdoes everything.”

He’d never really paid attention to his room before then, until his aunt was hovering around, and he got to see it through her eyes.

It’d always been big, and pretty spectacular, with high ceilings and Star Wars posters covering the walls. It had its own mini living area in front of a Stark television and a mini office off in a corner, which was his favorite place to study. He had his own bathroom, a balcony, a king-sized bed.

It never mattered before. When he first moved in, he was too preoccupied with abandoned to be impressed with a big space with a lot of fancy objects in it, and now, it was just normal. 

His normal, but it still felt awkward showing it off, especially to May, who always worked so hard just to provide a fraction of what was in front of them. 

“I really did miss you, Peter,” said May. “I hope that’s enough.”

“Enough?” asked Peter. “Enough for what?”

She didn’t answer, and instead, picked up one of the framed pictures Peter had sitting on his desk. He knew it by the dark blue frame. It was the only picture of May he kept out in the open, and it was only because Ben was featured, too. They were together, at an ice cream shop in Queens, wearing spoons on their noses. 

“Do you remember this?” 

Peter shrugged. “How could I forget?” 

He'd come home from school sad, so Ben and May took him out for ice cream, and Ben taught him how to hang spoons from their noses. When Ben died, Peter was too old to be impressed with spoons on noses, but May was sad every day. Peter would stop at their favorite ice cream parlor on the way home from school, spend his lunch money on their favorite flavor, and make May smile. 

Soft, sad, but it was still a smile. 

That was before she knew about Spider-Man. That brief period between Ben’s death, and her figuring out the truth, where they were actually close. 

Looking at her now, Peter knew this was a different May. Definitely not the same one he used to sit on the couch with, eating ice cream after midnight, and watching trash reality TV.

“It was a good day,” said May. She carefully put the picture back down on the desk, and her eyes trailed over the other objects scattered around. Ribbons from decathlon meets, homework, tests that had been handed back with circled A’s written on the top. 

It felt like an intrusion. He didn’t like her snooping. 

“Yeah,” said Peter. “But it was a long time ago.” He hitched his thumb back at the door. “We should probably get back out to the dining room, they’re probably already waiting for us.”

He didn’t wait for her response. He brushed past her and didn’t look back.

Tony and Greg were back in the dining room when Peter and May appeared from out of the darkened hallway, and all four of them sat down for ice cream. Peter swirled his around in the bowl with his spoon. Once again, he was ignoring Greg while he went on and on about that time he did volunteer work for people who lost their homes in the last hurricane. 

He bit back his smile at Tony’s annoyed face, at his fist twitching. Watching Tony grip his spoon, Peter thought he might snap it in half. 

* * *

Flashes from the TV lit up Peter’s face as he sat on the couch, in the living room, with a carton of ice cream sitting on his legs. There wasn’t a need for a bowl. It was just him on the couch, and everyone else was asleep. Even May and Greg were probably sleeping, just across town in Brooklyn, in the home they made with each other. 

His eyes were sucked into the TV. Something stupid was on. Something that numbed his mind the same way the ice cream numbed his mouth as it went down his throat, cool and soothing. 

He was so numb, so focused on the show, he hadn’t heard Tony walked down the hallway and into the living room. Didn’t know he was even awake until he jumped over the back of the couch and startled him so bad, he jumped up and sent the ice cream carton spiraling facedown into the carpet.

Peter looked up at Tony, glaring and frowning. 

“That’s what you get for dropping down from the ceiling all the time,” said Tony, as he bent over and picked the ice cream up off the floor. He swiped the spoon from Peter’s idle hand, disinfected it by wiping it on his shirt, dipped it in the ice cream, and took a bite. 

“That was mine.”

“Not anymore,” said Tony. He looked at the TV. “What is this garbage you’re watching?” 

“The Bachelor,” said Peter, and didn’t elaborate. 

“What –“ started Tony, then stopped. He sighed. “You know what I’m not even going to ask, but it sounds like trash.”

“It is.” 

Tony nodded, and continued eating the ice cream that he stole while he settled into the couch.  It was silent for several minutes, just the sounds from the TV, which was set on low, filled the space. 

“May and I used to do this,” said Peter. He pulled the thought from thin air. His feet hadn’t realized they were reliving old memories when he’d gotten out from his bed and wandered into the kitchen, but sitting there, with Tony next to him, it became clear.

Tony stuck the spoon in the ice cream and ordered Friday to pause the TV.

“We had this whole ritual, after Ben died, before she – before things changed,” said Peter. It was paused, but he continued to stare at the TV. 

“We’d just stay up late eating ice cream and watching trash like this, and just talking.” 

He missed that. He missed his aunt, and it was too bad she wasn’t around anymore. The person who came back for him, who kept promising him they were going to be a family, wasn’t May. Not anymore.

Peter looked down at his lap and twisted his hands together. It didn’t seem fair for this May imposter to come back and walk around and unravel all these old memories he’d worked so hard to keep tied down.

Tony pressed the ice cream into Peter’s stomach, like some sort of peace offering. 

“Listen,” said Tony. “I called the attorney and had him get our court date pushed back.”

“For the adoption?” asked Peter. He turned, and faced Tony, no longer interested in pretending to be interested in a paused TV show. He shoved the ice cream down on the coffee table. “Why?” 

“Because you’re confused.” 

“No, no, I’m not.” 

“Yes, you are,” said Tony. “Look, Peter, there isn’t anything that would make me happier than legally making you part of my family, but it needs to be right, for you. I don’t want you walking into this for the wrong reasons, and right now you’re walking around like a robot- “ 

“-No I’m not,” repeated Peter. 

“-and refusing to deal with any of this,” said Tony. “You’re ignoring it still or trying to.” Tony leaned back against the couch, and sighed. “This is just all really bad timing, me and Pep… we just want what’s best for you, and that’s not piling more stress on you.” 

“I’m not confused,” said Peter. He leaned back against the couch, to match Tony, and looked him in the eye when he spoke, trying as best as he could to feign honesty. “And I _have_ thought about. I want us to be a real family.” 

“We’re already a real family, Pete. Going to court doesn’t change anything, this will just give you more time to think.” 

“I don’t want more time to think.” 

“Yeah, I know,” said Tony. He ruffled Peter’s hair and started to rise up from the couch. “It’ll be okay. We’ll figure it out, and everything will turn out the way it’s supposed to.” 

That sort of sounded like a fairy tale. Nothing ever seemed to work out the way Peter wanted it to work out, but maybe that was the problem. Maybe the way Peter wanted things to be, and the way they were supposed to be, were at odds. 

“Don’t stay up too late, alright?” 

Peter nodded, and Tony went back to his bedroom. 

He blinked at the TV. It was still paused, and the people were frozen in place. That wasn’t entirely unfamiliar for him. He didn’t know how many more times his life was going to get put on hold, didn’t know how much longer he’d be made to stay frozen in place, but he hoped it’d end soon. 

* * *

Peter slammed his locker shut, and immediately regretted it. The screeching of metal hitting metal, of even the lock mechanism clicking into place, was too loud. He glared at it, thinking he might burn holes through it with his eyes, when a hand waved in front of his face. 

“Earth to Peter,” said Ned. “Weren’t you listening?” 

“Huh?” 

Ned rolled his eyes. “Do have your notes for Ms. Beckham’s class? I was hoping to get some last-minute studying in before the quiz.” 

Out of all his friends, Peter was the best notetaker, and he suffered for it. They all knew memorizing his notes was almost the same as memorizing a cheat sheet. They came for him and his notes on quiz days, but on that particular quiz day, Peter was empty handed. He didn’t have any notes. He didn’t have a clue what this quiz was supposed to be about. 

“Let’s do something better,” said Peter. Ned frowned. “Let’s ditch today.” 

“You want to skip school?” 

“Yeah, why not?” 

“Because that’s really weird,” said Ned. “You love school.” 

He shrugged and looked around. They were running out of time to make a clean break. The crowds in the hall were thinning. 

“So? Everyone needs a break sometimes, and we can go to that new arcade.” 

Peter had him at the word arcade. They snuck through one of the back doors, and spent the entire day putting tokens into arcade games, blowing up spaceships, shooting at screens with plastic guns. It wasn’t fun, exactly, but it was distracting. It was better than guessing answers on a quiz, or sitting at desks, trying to keep his thoughts straight. 

When he got home, he went straight to his bedroom, laid face down on his bed and slipped his headphones on his ears, only for them to be yanked after just two songs later. Peter flipped on his back and looked up at Tony. 

“Why weren’t you at school today?” 

“I, uh,” started Peter. He sat up, and tried to think of a good lie, but that was pointless. The credit card statement would tell the truth. “I went to the arcade with Ned.” 

Tony frowned at him, and his whole face was scrunched. “Is this going to become a habit?”

There was only one answer, at least just one that would get Tony to leave his room. “No.” 

“Good,” he said. “No spidey tonight.” 

“But- “ 

“No school, no spidey.”

Tony zipped out of his room before Peter had a chance to yell anymore protests at him. He collapsed back down on his bed and slid his headphones back over his ears. It was probably for the best. Peter never liked arguing with Tony, and he could use the break from Spider-Man to catch up on studying, but that isn’t what he did.

He walked into school the next morning the same as he did the morning before, wanting to leave and nowhere near ready for Ms. Beckham’s quiz. He guessed at the answers. He wrote down nonsense, and he didn’t really care as long as it got the piece of paper out of his face and onto Ms. Beckham’s desk. 

Peter spent the rest of his school week that way. He sat at a desk, doodled in his notebook, and couldn’t be bothered with focusing on anything that wasn’t the lines his pencils made. 

That Saturday when May and Greg came over for dinner, she carried in with them a copy of Monopoly. She set it down on the dining room table, and turned towards Peter while Tony used every ounce of restraint he possessed to not break Greg’s hand while they greeted each other with a handshake.

“I figured we could play after dinner,” she told him. “You know, like we – “ 

“Yeah, I know,” said Peter. “I remember.” 

But it was a little shocking that she did, too. That she had all these memories, and they were the same as Peter’s. He didn’t like how uncertain that felt, how now he was left in standing in the middle of the dining room wondering if his old family was really as dead as he thought it was, and hoping, despite being scared of hope, that maybe May was still aunt May, even if it was just a fraction of her that was left. 

Tony clapped a hand on his shoulder, grounding him, bringing him back to reality. “As long as I get to be the racecar.”

Peter forced a smile and a laugh and sat down at the table. Tony sat across from him, and Peter’s elbow bumped against May’s arm as they ate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> things are gonna start picking up a bunch after this chapter, so I hope you're ready because I'm not, it might be slower getting the next one out cause my next irondad bingo is on the longer side, it's about a carnival and a creepy motel and it's a little odd but please read it anyway 
> 
> find me and come hang out on Tumblr 
> 
> [hailing-stars](https://hailing-stars.tumblr.com)
> 
> kudos and comments let me know what you think, thanks for reading!!


	5. house in brooklyn

They never played monopoly again, not after that first night.

It turned out Pepper and Tony were too competitive. The game turned them against each other, and at several points, they both tried coaxing Peter into alliances. He wasn’t game for it though, he took a passive approach to the game, along with May. Neither tried to win. Both enjoyed watching Pepper and Tony destroy each other too much to apply any real effort or get too upset when they had a bad roll.

Greg, on the other hand, was a different story.

Peter thought he might go into a rage, or burst into tears, by the end of the game, when he landed on one of Pepper’s three monopolies and had to pay up.

She spent the rest of the week bragging about it, and lording it over Tony, who technically won, but it didn’t matter. Bankrupting Greg was the real goal.

The next time May came over they played cards on the floor in Peter’s bedroom. Just the two of them, while Tony got stuck distracting Greg with some sports game either of them cared about very much.

They played old games, games they used to play when Peter was a kid, and they talked, about school, and her new job, and although they smiled, and they laughed, it was different. There was something sad about her smile. It wasn’t the same. Not like he remembered, anyway. 

At the end of the night, when it was time for her to go, they hugged, and she disappeared into the elevator with Greg. Peter wondered if she would ever really smile a real smile again and if that would be his fault.

School between weekly dinner was a daze. Peter got by, just couldn’t tell anyone exactly how he was getting by. He handed in work, and he didn’t really care when it was handed back to him with red Xs all over it. He did okay on quizzes, even if he stopped taking notes and participating in class.

Peter got his wakeup call on a Wednesday afternoon. When he got home from school, he got a snack from the kitchen and walked into his bedroom with half a granola bar in his mouth. Tony sat leaned back in in his desk chair, waiting for him. That couldn’t mean any thing good.

He dropped his bookbag at his feet.

“H-hey Tony,” said Peter. “What are you doing… uh, in here?” 

Tony stared at him, then beckoned for him to come closer. Hesitantly, dragging his feet the whole way, Peter obeyed.

“I got online and checked your grades today,” said Tony. “They looked a little… off, so I emailed with your teachers, and they’re all saying the same thing, that you’re a little off, that you’re slipping, and distracted.” 

Peter shifted on his feet and shoved the rest of his granola bar into his mouth, to buy himself some time. He didn’t know what to say to Tony, what kind of excuse to pull, or how to distract himself, and Tony, away from the truth.

“Can we talk about it?” Tony pressed. “Maybe I can help.”

Peter chewed and swallowed. Just the empty wrapper was left in his hands, he twirled it between his fingers. “You can’t, uh, I mean, it’s not a big deal.”

Tony didn’t believe him. Peter could tell. It was written in his eyes, and in the way his face folded. He stood from the desk chair, then motioned for Peter to take his place, but he didn’t move. Just watched as Tony went and retrieved his bookbag off the floor near his door, handed it back to him, and gently nudged him until he finally sat down.

“Okay, if it’s no big deal. Do your homework.”

“Sure,” said Peter. He unzipped his bag, piled his desk with notebooks and textbooks, flipping one open, then looking back up at Tony. “You’re just going to stand there and watch me?”

“Yup, I’m here to help,” said Tony. “Gotta make sure everything is up to your usual standards, unless there’s something you want to talk about.” 

Peter glared, so Tony knew this intrusion was both annoying and unnecessary, but ultimately kept his mouth shut and started his homework. Tony hadn’t been lying. He was there to help, or at least his version of it, which was checking over everything, and telling him which ones he got wrong, and ordering him to fix it.

When it was handed back to him the next day, it didn’t have any red Xs on it, but Peter waded it up and threw it in the trash, anyway. 

He liked his grade. He didn’t like how it came to be.

He went outside and sat on a bench in front of the school, waiting and watching for Happy to pull the car and take him home. It was starting to get cold outside, so Peter shoved his bookbag down at his feet, unzipped it, and took out his jacket. As he put it on, his phone started ringing.

May’s picture lit up the screen. It was one from before, one that Tony had saved from his old phone, after it was broken, one where her smile was normal.

“Hey May.”

“Peter, hey,” she said. “So, I was thinking, we could try something different this week for dinner.” 

“Yeah?” 

“I was thinking you could come over here for dinner, instead of us coming to you.” 

“Okay, yeah,” said Peter. He looked up, down the street, trying to spot Happy’s car, but it was still nowhere in sight. “Tony and Pepper would probably love to see your new place.”

“Well, that’s the thing, Peter,” said May. “I was hoping it’d just be you.” 

“Oh.” 

A few others were in the schoolyard, waiting around for rides, or just hanging out with friends. He wondered if any of his classmates’ lives were as complicated as his, if any of them had these swift pangs of panic where they tried desperately to know that right thing to say.

Peter knew what he  _wanted_ to say, but also, he knew it wasn’t the _right_ thing to say.  

“It’s just with Tony and Pepper, it feels like supervised visitation.”

Maybe that’s what was wrong. Why when they spent time together on the weekends her smile was never quite right. 

“Uh, maybe, I’ll have to ask.” A horn honked, and Peter jerked his head to the side. Happy and the car had arrived. “I gotta go.”

He hung up, without saying goodbye and without waiting for her to say it, then climbed into the backseat of Happy’s car.

“Good day?”

Peter’s eyes met Happy’s in the rearview mirror. “Yeah, it was fine.” 

Happy didn’t believe him, either.

* * *

Peter stood out on the porch in front of May and Greg’s house, staring at the front door, trying to figure how he got there. Pepper and Tony didn’t seem completely comfortable with the idea of his going over there when he asked, but they hadn’t said no either, hadn’t stopped him.

He wished they would have. He had hoped maybe Tony would flex his authority as the custodial parent and stop this evening from happening, and yeah, technically Peter could’ve decided not to come on his own, but with the decision came the guilt.

It shouldn’t be so hard, spending time with May, and also, it shouldn’t be so hard trying to decide what to do now he was at the door.

Maybe he should knock, or ring the doorbell, but then maybe that would upset May, highlighting that they were practically strangers. Just opening the door and walking in didn’t seem right, either. That felt wrong, and awkward, and like an intrusion. He didn’t live there.

It wasn’t his home.

His inward debated continued. It circled round and round until the door came open on its own, or rather, Greg opened it from the other side. Peter flinched, jumped back, but Greg didn’t seem to notice. He gave him a toothy smile that didn’t reach his eyes, that seemed forced.

“Peter,” he greeted. “You’re just in time. Come on.”

He followed Greg through the foyer and into their dining room, where May was taking out containers of Thai, from their old favorite place, out of a plastic bag and onto the table.

“Look who I found creeping around outside,” said Greg, walking off to the connected kitchen.

“I wasn’t creeping,” said Peter, hotly. May looked up from what she was doing, and smiled at him, as way of saying hello. 

“Oh I know,” said Greg, from in front of the fridge. He grabbed a couple of cokes, and when he came back to the dining room table, handed one to Peter. “I’m just joking with you, Peter.” 

The thing was, Peter didn’t find Greg funny, and he didn’t want to be joked around with, not by him.

He took his coke with a thanks, and they all sat down at the table. He tried to keep himself grounded by focusing on Greg’s newest sweater vest, or rather, how fun it would be later to catch Tony up with the newest sweater vest. They were both convinced. The man didn’t own any other type of clothing. 

But to his complete shock, dinner turned out to be pleasant. They talked about school, and decathlon, and May’s new job. It was light, easy conversation, and was a nice change of pace from all the other dinners, when the conversation was monopolized by Greg. By dessert, Peter was comfortable, full, and actually enjoying himself.

But Parkers couldn’t have nice things, or nice moments, and that should’ve been his first clue the evening was about to take a turn.

Greg stood up, the back legs of the chairs screech against the floor, and announced he had some work to do in his office, and once he was gone, May reached across the table and put her hands on Peter’s.

“I’m so glad you came over tonight, this has been fun, right?”

“Yeah,” said Peter. He didn’t know how to do anything other than agree, though he felt the fun was about to unravel. “It’s been great.” 

He leaned back in his chair, distance to brace himself for whatever was coming. For her to tell him she was leaving again, packing up and moving house to somewhere across the country, or maybe, to a completely different country. Maybe her and Greg enjoyed Paris so much they decided to live there. 

“So listen,” she said. “There’s something we need to talk about.” 

“Okay, what?” 

May took a breath, and almost started her goodbye speech. It was strange. Peter almost felt relieved. His life would go back to normal. No more dinners, no more emotional numbness. He could catch up in school. He could enjoy being Spider-Man again. He could hang out with Ned, without being a complete downer. 

She let go of his hands, sudden, then stood up from the table. “Just, come on, I have something to show you.”

He followed her upstairs, and through a hallway, then finally, into a door, into a bedroom with a made, queen-sized bed, with blue walls covered in Star Wars posters. 

“Do you like it?” asked May. “It’s smaller than the room at Tony’s, but it’s homier, right? Don’t you think?” 

“Oh yeah… it’s, um, it’s great.”

“This is what I wanted to talk to you about. I think it’s time we start discussing when you’re going to come back home.”

“Back home?”

“Well I know this isn’t Queens. But we’re family, and family belongs together.” 

“That’s not what you thought when you left.” 

The words were cruel, and wrong. They were those things, but also, they were the truth, and they slipped out before Peter could stop them. May retreated, almost like he’d slapped with something more than just words, and when her cellphone started to ring, she wore that shocked, hurt expression as she read the caller ID, told him she’d be back, and left Peter alone in the room.

He looked around. 

It was empty. It was a bed that had never been slept in, furniture without any clutter loaded onto it, no pictures sitting around on desks, or hanging up on the walls. He walked into it further and stuck his head inside the closet. It reminded him of the closet he had at the Queens apartment. Neither were big enough to fit a human, but that didn’t stop Peter from hiding there as a child, and even later, as he got older, when he just needed to block out the noise of the world after Ben died.

“It’s pretty small, huh?”

Peter backed up, and took his head out of the closet, to see Greg. He stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame. His sweater vest was untucked, and his hair hung in his face. Sloppy, like Peter had never seen him before.

“No, it’s sized… perfectly.”

“Can we chat? Man to man?”

He wanted to say no, definitely not, but he figured the talk was coming whether he wanted it or not, so he nodded.

“It’s not really fair to make May compete with the Starks,” said Greg. He stood up straight, walking away from the door frame, and closer to Peter. 

“What? I’m not doing – “ 

“-Look, I get it. You have it made, living with billionaires, having servants, getting the celebrity treatment,” said Greg. He ignored Peter, ignored that he was shaking his head. “But those people aren’t your family, and that’s what should matter most.” 

It was an insult, and offensive, and the only way Peter knew to cope what with Greg was implying, without losing his temper and shouting at him, was to imagine what Tony would say, if he heard it. He’d laugh, maybe. Tony knew from experience Peter wasn’t impressed by fancy toys or clothes and spent the first couple of weeks under Tony’s care mortified a stranger was doing his laundry. 

But then, maybe that didn’t matter. If that’s what May thought about him, that he loved the Starks for their money, than it was true to her, even if it was so, so wrong.  

“Sometimes I really worry about May,” said Greg. “She’s come so far in her recovery from depression, but her happiness… it’s still so fragile. It helps when you’re around. You bring out her brightest smiles.”

He stopped talking, as if he expected Peter to say something, but he didn’t have anything to say. He didn’t want May to be depressed. Sometimes, he was still angry with her, but it didn’t mean he wanted her to suffer. Nobody deserved depression. 

“I guess it’s just something to think about,” said Greg. Realizing he wasn’t going to get a response from Peter, he left the room, passing by May on her way in. 

“What were you two talking about?”

“Oh, I was just telling him how much I like my room,” said Peter. May’s face lit up, and for a few seconds, she looked like the May from before.

* * *

That night, Peter saw Ben, but he wasn’t the way he remembered him.

He wasn’t smiling or warm. He wasn’t kind. His stare was blank, and while his eyes were empty, they were still loaded with accusations, and with blame. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need words to convey the message. Just his presence, his sad, worn face, was enough for Peter to realize how disappointed his uncle would be if he were alive to witness the way things were between him and May.

Peter didn’t wake with a scream, but rather, his face was wet from tears. He laid faceup on his bed, stared at the ceiling, crying silent tears that could only ever be witnessed by the walls in his room. And FRIDAY, if she was spying on him. Peter hoped not. He wasn’t in the mood to explain to Tony that it was his fault that Ben was dead and May was depressed.

So, to better hide his guilt, he spent Sunday in his room, specifically in his bed, watching shows he’d seen a million times before on his laptop, while his thoughts swirled round and round. At some point, Pepper had stuck her head in his room and invited him to watch a movie with her and Tony, but he politely declined.

On the way back from the bathroom, he swiped the family photo of him, May and Ben off his desk and brought it back to bed with him. The people in the photo were smiling wide, with no clue they were about to be ripped apart. 

Maybe that family could exist, again, though. Ben was dead, but when May and Peter were together, his memory was more complete. Maybe it wasn’t worth it, wasn’t worth losing his new family.

He swallowed the lump in his throat. He shouldn’t be so selfish when May’s husband was dead, and all she wanted was her family back.

It was late into the evening when Peter finally swung his legs off the bed and wandered down to the workshop to find Tony. He was there, just like he always was. Peter could always count on Tony to be there. 

“Oh hey, Peter,” he said. He slid his work goggles up to rest on his head, and he frowned when he looked at Peter. “What’s wrong?” 

“I just,” said Peter. His voice was quiet, and a bit broken. “I just need to talk to you about something.”

 “Okay, anything,” said Tony, taking the goggles all the way off his head, and tossing them onto the worktable. Peter watched them fell, then looked back up at Tony.

 “May asked me to move in with her and Greg.” 

“…she did?” If he was angry, it wasn’t apparent in his tone or in his face. He was a lot better at hiding his emotions than Peter. “How do you feel about that?”

Bad. He felt bad about it. He didn’t want to leave, or even have this conversation with Tony, but it didn’t matter how he felt. He had to put his feelings aside. For May, and for Ben, and for the chance they could be a family again. 

“Sort of like, I don’t know,” said Peter, looking down. “Like I want to give it a chance.” 

“Wow,” said Tony. “That’s… you’re sure?”

“Yeah, I’ve given it some thought,” said Peter. He hoped Tony wouldn’t call him out on the fact the most thought he could’ve given it was a half day.

Tony reached out, put a hand on his shoulder, and squeezed. “If that’s what you want, we’ll make it happen.”

Peter felt something cold spreading through his belly. He never imagined the conversation to go this way. He thought maybe Tony wouldn’t let go him, that he would say of course not, that Peter belonged there at the penthouse, in the workshop, specifically. But he didn’t.

“Don’t look so surprised,” said Tony. “I told you, you’re old enough to decide who you live with, and you make good decisions. I know you’ll do the right thing. I trust you.”

The words made him soar but ate him up. He wished he was hearing them under different circumstances. He wished he could stay. 

“I’m gonna miss you, kid.” Tony pulled him into a hug, one that Peter wanted to last forever, but of course, couldn’t.

It ended quickly, just like the short period between deciding to move, telling May about his decision, and having to the pack his bags. 

There were a few special things he made sure got put into his suitcase. The watch Tony let him borrow, that was technically still his, the Iron Man plush Tony had gotten for him while he waited for him to get out of surgery, and an airbrush t-shirt Pepper bought for him the day he was miserable shopping in LA. 

His goodbye with her was a hug and a kiss on the forehead, and a see-you-soon. Peter had promised both of them he’d come around for dinner something, but the way she said it made Peter think her see-you-soon meant something different entirely. 

Peter didn’t say goodbye to Tony until they both stood on the porch of the Brooklyn house, holding bags, that were dropped on the concrete so they could share one last hug.

“Don’t be a stranger, okay,” said Tony, when they broke away. “I can always use an extra set of hands in the lab.”

Peter nodded. “Okay, yeah, yeah I’ll be by.” 

“And please do your homework,” continued Tony, his voice speeding up. “And go to school. You’re going through a hard time, but you’ll regret it later if you get behind. I know you. You care about your grades, don’t lose that.” 

“I won’t. I promise.” 

“Good,” said Tony, starting to back away, starting to walk off that porch and back to his car. “See you around, kid.” 

“See ya,” said Peter. He stayed out on the porch under the flickering lights, with his bags on the concrete, and watched as Tony got in the car, sped off, leaving him at this house in Brooklyn that wasn’t his home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> greg is a loser and must be stopped, and also, next chapter!! is going to be some Tony pov, because I feel like his perspective on all of this is needed, next chapter will hopefully be posted sooner than this one was, thanks for reading!!


	6. sanctuary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haapppyy Friday, here's a fresh chapter
> 
> and also THANKS so much, your guys response from the last chapter blew me away, I'm so glad you all are enjoying the story!

Tony flicked the propeller on the tiny, plastic helicopter, before setting it back down on his workstation and watching it spin round and round. The workshop was quiet without Peter and his rambling, without his questions. The entire penthouse was quiet and lonely without his energy. 

Home was empty, and the emptiness mocked him.  

The propellers slowed and came to a stop. That helicopter mocked him, too. It was a lie. Tony wasn’t a helicopter, not anymore, at least. A helicopter parent wouldn’t have allowed their child to move in with a practical stranger, and a literal one. 

It wasn’t supposed to be permanent. Both him and Pepper suspected it wouldn’t be, that Peter wouldn’t last long over there, and for one reason or another, he would come back home. May wasn’t ready to be a parent again. Greg wasn’t fit to take care of a goldfish, and Peter, he was still just lost and confused, reaching for something that didn’t exist anymore. 

Tony worried about the moment Peter truly realized it was gone. He worried most that he wouldn’t be there to pick up the pieces once he did.

It’d been a week since Tony drove Peter to Brooklyn and left him behind on a porch. There’d been no phone calls, no texts, no dropping by to help him in the workshop. No anything. It felt like avoidance. It felt like his kid was avoiding him.

Tony paused, listened to the footsteps creep into his workshop. They were light, and careful, but not light or careful enough. He didn’t have to turn and look to know they didn’t belong to Pepper, or to Peter, who he most wanted to see. It was the opposite, actually. It was someone he didn’t really care to see at all.

“You shouldn’t be here,” said Tony. “You haven’t been cleared officially. You can still be arrested.” 

He turned and was unsurprised to find a rogue Avenger sneaking into his penthouse. Tony locked eyes with Nat, who was there, in his workshop, where she shouldn’t be. She crept closer, despite Tony’s eyes telling her to leave, and when she arrived at the workstation, she eyed the plastic helicopter and picked it up. 

“Nice toy,” she said. “Where’d you get it?” 

“It was a gift,” answered Tony.

“From the kid?” she asked, and at Tony’s raised eyebrow, continued, “we were on the run, but we still had the news. Tony Stark can’t move to adopt a child without the whole world talking about it. Spider-Man, right? That boy you’re adopting?”

Tony just stared. He refused to confirm or deny, although he knew both options were useless. If Nat knew, then she knew. If the rest of the Avengers knew, they knew, and nothing would change it.

“It’s so obvious.” 

“He thinks he’s clever,” said Tony, opting to steer the conversation away from Spider-Man. Avoiding was second choice to denying, but it still worked. “He was trying to make a point.” 

Nat smiled. “Smart boy.” 

“Yeah, he is,” said Tony. “What are you doing here, exactly? Besides harassing me about my kid?”

“Cap says you didn’t show at the last hearing,” said Nat. “I’m just here to check if you’re getting cold feet, changing your mind, that sort of thing.” She put the helicopter back down on the workstation. Tony unclenched his fist. It was safe. “You know, I liked having a home, it’d be nice to get back to it.” 

It’d be a waste of his breath for him to explain to her that she wouldn’t have had to leave her home in the first place if she hadn’t traded sides for the wrong one. That fight was so long ago, though, or at least, it felt that way. He supposed Peter had been there to take his mind from it. Helping him heal had helped Tony heal, too, but now Peter was gone, and it was only fitting his previous demons returned in his place.

“No,” said Tony. “To answer your question, I’ve just had a few things on my mind.” 

“The kid, again?” 

“I’m still working to get you guys back, so you got your answer, now isn’t time you left?” He motioned at the door. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with this, with all the feelings Nat and the other Avengers were tied up in. “The door is right there. You can leave the same way you came in.”

Nat’s expression remained as blank as ever. At least that hadn’t changed. She turned, and walked back towards the door, paused. “It was good to see you again, Tony.”

And then she was gone, too. 

Tony wished he could say the same. Maybe someday, when he had his family back with him, whole and complete, he would consider being on friendly terms with his ex-team members. Until then, he only had room in his life for one heartbreak, he couldn’t roll the dice on another. 

He took the helicopter off the workstation and slid it into his pocket, before leaving the workshop in search of Pepper. His sanctuary just wasn’t the same with Peter, and needed to leave, or the silence might swallow him. 

* 

Peter was little. 

He was so little, he had to stand on his tippy toes to reach his cup on the dining room table, and even still, he could barely graze the plastic with his fingertips, but then, as if by magic, his drink scooted across the table and into his grasp. 

He looked up. Ben was there, hovering above him and the table, with his face shrouded in sunlight that streamed in through the window. 

“Thanks,” said Peter. His voice was small, too. Small, and sad. He missed his mom and dad. He missed his parents, who left him with his aunt and uncle, then never came back. 

Often, the wondered when Ben and May would take him somewhere and leave him there. Then he’d be completely alone. Then he’d have no one, at all. 

“Never,” said Ben. “I could never give you away. You’re my sun. My whole world revolves around you, it would collapse without you.” 

Ben broke up and faded out when Peter’s alarm from his phone ripped him from his dreams. He wiped a few tears from his eyes and swung his feet over his bed.

He didn’t want to get up. He didn’t want to go to school. May and Greg wouldn’t notice if he stayed under the covers and went back to his dreams. They didn’t wake up until later on, and probably wouldn’t check his room to see if he’d made it out of bed. But still, Peter couldn’t do it. He wouldn’t sleep the day away. 

He’d made a promise to Tony, and he intended to keep it. 

As he forced himself to walk across the hall to the bathroom, his thoughts were still on his dream, if they were really dreams, or some memory too old to remember. It was always the same. Only Ben’s words changed.

Once he told Peter when he went away he’d make sure there was someone else there to take care of him, that even if he left and went to heaven, he would never truly be alone. Must’ve just been a dream, based on wishful thinking. He lived in a house with two other people, same as the penthouse, and never felt more alone.

He showered, got dressed, packed his bookbag and threw it on his back, before carefully, quietly going downstairs. He made his steps as light as he could. He cringed when the last stair creaked, paused, and strained his ears for movement. Nothing. He let out a breath.

Peter didn’t need from any more complaints from Greg about his being too loud in the mornings. Waking him up once was enough. He preferred not seeing him that early, anyway. Actually, Peter preferred not seeing him at all.

He snagged a banana from the kitchen counter, and when his stomach growled, he considered grabbing another, then noticed there was only a couple left. With a sigh no one would hear, he left the house with the single banana and hoped it’d be enough to keep his stomach quiet until lunch. 

It didn’t. Not really. 

He suffered through four classes, and by the time lunch rolled around, he was just seconds away from starving to death. He bounced back and forth on his feet while he waited in line for his food, half listening to Ned as he talked about some TV show. Peter swiped four cheeseburgers, three orders of french fries, and because he could practically hear Pepper reprimanding him about bad food choices, he topped it off with a side salad.

Peter paid with his lunch account number. Tony and Pepper filled it with more money than he ever thought he’d use at the beginning of the year, but now, he worried it might run out. Lunch was the only meal he could eat as much as his metabolism demanded. 

“Dude,” said Ned, starting at Peter’s packed lunch tray, and watching as he inhaled his first cheeseburger in just a couple bites. “Are you alright?” 

“Yeah,” said Peter, as MJ sat down across from them, and gave a disgusted look at him. Peter was so hungry to stop eating, even when he was talking. “Just really hungry.” 

“More like ravenous,” said MJ. “When was the last time you ate? Last year?” 

Peter just shrugged and continued eating. He ate plenty, at school and sometimes on patrol, when he used the credit card Tony had given him at Delmar’s, but at home, he saw the looks Greg gave him when ate two sandwiches instead of one. 

May and Greg argued at night, about money, so Peter did what he could not to be a financial burden. That meant starving at lunch, and it meant using Tony’s credit card and hoping the totals were so small he wouldn’t even notice.

It was still strange, though. The arguments. May and Greg as a couple had more money than May and Ben ever did, and they had never argued about money. 

“Are you sure everything’s alright at May’s?” asked Ned. 

He’d made his opinions on Peter’s move very clear. Ned was confused. He didn’t like, and he’d been shocked, but most of the time, he kept it to himself. When MJ had found out, she just stared at him, like he was stupid.

“Yeah, everything’s great,” said Peter. His mouth was still full, and MJ was still looking at him like he was stupid. 

* 

After school Peter came home to an empty house. That was typical. He was used to it. Both May and Greg worked late, so usually he was on his own until dinner or sometimes even after. He didn’t mind it, at least that was what he told himself. It was nice to have the house to himself, it was nice to exist in the living room without Greg glaring at him and making him feel like he shouldn’t be there. 

In their absence, every afternoon he turned the living room into his office. He plopped down on the floor between the couch and the coffee table, switched on the TV for background noise, and took his textbooks and notebooks from his bookbag and stacked them on the coffee table. 

He didn’t want to be doing homework, but it was a rule Peter lived by. School before Spider-Man. He’d promised Tony. 

“See, Tony? I can do this. No problem.” 

The house creaked in response. Nobody was there to hear him. 

He finished his homework. He double checked his answers, and when he was satisfied everything was correct, he pulled his vending machine dinner out from his bookbag, a soda and a bag of chips. He turned up the volume, ate, and waited for May to come home from work. 

Peter considered going out as Spider-Man, but if he did that, he wouldn’t get to see her at all, so he sat. He watched TV, he waited. When the front door finally did come open, and May walked inside, she was followed by Greg. 

“Hey May,” said Peter. He turned backwards on the couch and sat up on his knees. Greg walked past them both without a word, and he headed towards the kitchen. 

“Hi Peter,” she greeted. “How as your day?”

“Fine, hey do you want to watch a movie?” 

“Oh honey, I wish I could,” said May. “Work really has me beat today, I was going to take a shower and go straight to bed.” 

“Oh, okay,” said Peter, deflating. He turned back around and sat back down on the couch properly. 

“But hey,” said May. “Tomorrow my shift ends early, and Greg has his support group, maybe we can get ice cream from our favorite spot and watch Catfish, like we used to.”

The suggestion was a light in the dark. It was a promise to return to normal, to return to the like before, and that was the only thing Peter wanted. 

“I can pick some up on the way home from school,” said Peter.

May smiled at him. “Sounds like a date. I know I’ve been busy lately, but I really am glad you’re here.” 

Peter nodded, letting her know he understood, and watched her disappear up the stairs. Her presence was replaced by Greg’s, who came out of the kitchen with a plate of food and a glass of water. He gave Peter a look as he sat down into the armchair but didn’t say a word. 

“Uh, hey, Greg,” said Peter. “Good day?” 

“Yeah,” he said. His eyes were on the TV, then slowly moved to Peter. “It could be better, though.” 

Peter knew the feeling. 

He packed up his books and notebooks, shoving them inside his bookbag, before strapping it to his back and leaving Greg in the living room without another word. He went upstairs, to his bedroom, where he intended to spend the rest of his evening. 

Later that night, Peter laid in bed and stared at the ceiling, sounds of more arguing drifting through the walls. More angry words about all the money they didn’t have, how they shouldn’t have bought a house. May yelled back, she told him she wasn’t doing… something. Peter didn’t hear the rest.

He grabbed his headphones out from where they were hidden under his bed and put them over his ears. Peter had decided on that hiding spot when he saw Greg eying them. The very last thing he needed was for May’s loser boyfriend to start pawning all his stuff for cash.

*

Thinking about ice cream and mindless reality TV and the return of the time of before tortured Peter throughout all his classes. He watched the clock tick. He counted down the minutes before the last bell of the day released him onto the streets and into the fall air. 

 His feet found the ice cream parlor automatically. It was an old routine, something that hadn’t done in a long time, but his feet never forgot. Either did he. 

He picked out their favorite flavor and paid, once again, with the credit card he’d gotten from Tony. There was probably something to be said about irony, about how when Peter lived with Tony, he was always told he didn’t spend enough allowance, and now that he didn’t live with him, he was using spending too much. 

He felt guilty about it now, though. It wasn’t Tony’s responsibility to pay for him. Not anymore. 

With the ice cream in a plastic bag, Peter made it back to the Brooklyn house only to be crushed on arrival. 

The house was empty. There was a note attached to the fridge, and it read: Had to help Greg with the support group tonight, rain check? Be back home at around nine, love May. She drew hearts to prove her love. Even she knew her words didn’t mean very much.

Peter shoved the ice cream in the freezer and went out as Spider-Man. He hoped to find a fight he couldn’t win, that way he’d hurt just as bad on the outside as he did on the inside, but he came back to the Brooklyn house with only a few fresh bruises. 

May and Greg were already sleeping by the time Peter crept through his window. It figured. He supposed hearing snores through the walls was better than hearing them arguing. 

He changed from his spidey suit to his pajamas, and by chance, found Tony’s watch at the bottom of his dresser drawer. He’d hidden it there for the same reason he kept his headphones tucked away. He stared at it a few seconds, wondered what Tony was doing, then clicked it on his wrist. 

Peter retrieved his headphones, put them over his ears, and shut his eyes, listening to AC/DC, and pretending he was on the couch down in Tony’s workshop, where he’d fallen asleep plenty of times before.

He woke up to someone shaking his shoulder. Gently, and comforting, and when Peter opened his eyes, that feeling of comfort made complete sense, only it didn’t make sense. 

“Tony?” said Peter, taking off his headphones. He rubbed his eyes, and saw it was definitely Tony. Classically concerned Tony, his face scrunched up with worry. “What are you doing here?” 

“Uh, I live here,” said Tony. “What are you doing here?” 

Peter looked around. He wasn’t in the guest bedroom in the Brooklyn house. He was in the workshop, in the penthouse, on the couch, with no clue how he got there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about the slight cliffhanger, new chappie next Friday


	7. tony's watch

“I don’t remember,” said Peter, as he propped his elbows up against the kitchen table for support and rubbed his temples.

He blinked at the footage playing out on Tony’s laptop. It didn’t make any sense. He watched himself walk, barefoot, headphones on, with a blank stare in his eyes, up the sidewalk to Pepper and Tony’s building, through the lobby, and into the elevator. The feed switched to the camera footage down in the workshop, and Peter watched as he stepped out of the elevator, went directly to the couch, and crashed. 

“I don’t remember any of this,” he repeated, looking up at Tony, as he placed a mug of hot chocolate in front of him on the table. 

Tony hummed and walked out of the kitchen. When he came back just a couple of seconds later, he had a throw blanket that he draped over Peter’s shoulders. He recognized it as the blanket that normally lived on the couch, that he’d fallen asleep with plenty of times on movie nights.

He hugged it closer to his body.

He wasn’t cold, not exactly. The footage showed he’d been asleep in the workshop a couple of hours, more than long enough to warm up, before Tony had found him there. 

But still, the blanket was nice. It was home.

“Looks like you were sleep walking,” said Tony, as he sat down on the stool next to him. He angled his body so he was facing the Peter, just as Peter was facing the table and the laptop, where surveillance footage continued to play. “Have you ever slept walked before?”

Peter shook his head and traced the Stark Industries logo printed on the mug with his finger, while Tony watched him.

“Everything’s okay, over at May’s?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” said Peter. “Everything’s great.” 

“Peter.”

“It’s fine,” he stressed. “Umm, I was just thinking, before I went to bed, about our nights in the workshop, and I had just put my watch on- “ 

“-you put your watch on before you laid down to sleep?”

Peter paused. He didn’t know how to admit he’d really just put it on because he needed to feel close to Tony, close to home.

“No, what I meant to say, was I forgot to take it off,” said Peter, ignoring the look Tony gave him, the way his eyes narrowed like they could cut right through the lie. “It really isn’t a big deal. It’s not going to happen again.”

But it could happen again, and the frown on Tony’s face told Peter they both knew that was the truth.

“You can tell me if something is wrong– “

“-Tony, just drop it, please,” said Peter. He looked down inside his mug and watched the steam waft up off the hot cocoa.

“Okay,” said Tony. He was so quick to back off, Peter snapped his head back up to stare in shock as Tony raised his hands up in surrender.

Peter must’ve really sounded worn. He must really look defeated, if even Tony refused to press him any further. 

“Peter?”

He turned and saw Pepper, still in her slippers, pajamas and robe, slowly walking into the kitchen to join them.

“Are you okay? What are you doing here so early?”

Peter got stuck on his words again. He didn’t know how to answer such a complicated question or tell her about sleeping walking across the city in a way that wouldn’t invite a series of even more questions. He didn’t want to make Pepper worry, the same way he made Tony worry.

“He walked here from Brooklyn last night,” said Tony. “In his sleep.” 

Peter imagined the word fragile was stamped across his forehead, because although alarm was written into every angle of Pepper’s face, she didn’t verbalize it. He wondered if he was giving a vibe, he wondered when everyone started tiptoeing around him like he had to do every morning to avoid waking up Greg. 

“I’m glad you’re okay,” said Pepper. She rested her hand on his shoulder and wiped the hair out his forehead. “Does May know where you are?”

He and Tony looked at each other. Neither of them had even thought about calling her, or if Tony had, he hadn’t mentioned it out loud. Peter knew they were both avoiding it for the same reason. Peter didn’t want to go back to Brooklyn, and Tony didn’t want him to, either.

Pepper probably didn’t want him to leave, either, but she wasn’t cruel in her carelessness the way Peter and Tony were. She stayed logical, considerate, and she left them in the kitchen to retrieve her phone and give May a call. May, who Pepper had claimed on her way out, must be worried sick.

Probably, May hadn’t even realized Peter wasn’t in his bedroom, but he kept that thought to himself. He didn’t want to tempt Tony into reverting back into interrogation mode, and to his credit, he didn’t seem anywhere close. His jaw was loose, his shoulders were dropped, he was relaxed. 

He gave Peter’s elbow a nudge, and said, “Come on, let’s make breakfast.”

He’d forgotten how chaotic cooking with Tony could be, how quickly the kitchen became a mess, and he forgot the way Pepper’s voice sounded when she reprimanded them about picking up after themselves, firm but ultimately, lighthearted.

He’d forgotten what it was like to eat with other people, to hold conversations over meals when he wasn’t at school with his friends. To smile with family, to laugh with them, without having to worry about saying the wrong words at the wrong time.

He’d forgotten the simple peace that just came with being home.

Home. He’d only been away from it for a week. It felt like a lot longer.

The family of three sat at the kitchen, long after their food was gone, pretending that everything was normal. After breakfast they would go on and have a completely normal Saturday. Maybe Peter would go to Ned’s, or maybe Ned would come over, and they’d play video games. Maybe Peter and Tony would go downstairs and tinker in the workshop until Pepper had to make them both go to sleep. 

They didn’t talk about Brooklyn, or about Greg, or even about May. Not since Pepper called her, so it was a punch to the gut when the elevator dinged, the doors slid open, and May rushed out and into the penthouse. 

May had both her hands on Peter’s cheeks within seconds. Behind her, Greg loitered around in the foyer, shuffling his feet and refusing to come any further in the penthouse.

“Peter are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good.”

She withdrew her cold, shaking hands and stepped back.

“He doesn’t remember anything,” said Tony, while May kept her eyes locked on Peter. They were wide, big with concern. Maybe she did care, maybe it took sleep walking for her to realize. “Just going to sleep in his bed and waking up here.”

Out in the foyer, Greg made a noise under his breath, and Tony narrowed his eyes at him. His jaw tightened. Relaxed Tony was gone. Just like Peter’s fleeting seconds of peace.

“Problem?”

“No,” said Greg. He took his phone out of his pocket, and made a big deal about checking the time, before putting it back. “We just don’t have time to stand around and talk about this all day.”

Peter knew the exact look in Tony’s eyes. He knew it as the ‘stop talking now’ look, as the ‘back away’, or ‘play dead immediately’ look. He hated being on the receiving end of it, but he didn’t mind so much when it was leveled at Greg, and Pepper, who usually stepped in when that look came out, remained mysteriously oblivious to it.

“Yeah,” said May. Her eyes flicking back and forth between Tony and Greg. She reached out, and gripped her hand around Peter’s arm, tugging at him until he stood up from his chair. “We should really be heading out, busy day and all.” 

“You don’t think we should talk about this?” asked Pepper. “And come up with a solution? So it doesn’t happen again? He really can’t be out there wandering – “

“-It won’t happen again,” said May. She continued pulling him towards the elevator, and Peter continued to let her. She was scared, but he couldn’t decide what she was afraid of more, his sleepwalking, or the increasing possibility of Tony not letting her take Peter out of the penthouse. 

But it wasn’t Tony who stopped them. It was Pepper. 

“Wait,” she said, as they got to the elevator door. Peter felt May’s grip loosen. “He needs shoes. I’m sure he still has a pair in his closet. Just give me a few seconds.”

She was gone for longer than just a few seconds.

It gave Peter enough time to break away from May and hug Tony goodbye. Tony’s hand rested on his shoulder before they broke apart, and he told him, quiet enough for only Peter to hear, that he and Pepper were only a phone call or a text away.

When Pepper finally did return with Peter’s shoes, she’d been gone for so long, he suspected it was intentional. Probably to give him and Tony time, probably to troll Greg, or most likely, it was both, but in the end, it didn’t matter.

Peter put on his shoes, got into the elevator, and stared at Tony and Pepper until the doors slid shut, until he was trapped, alone, in a small space with May and Greg. 

*

The car ride home was silent. 

There wasn’t idle chatting, or even music on the radio. May’s eyes were set out the window, as she twisted the ends of her hair, and Peter looked down at his hands, trying to focus on Tony’s watch on his wrist, instead of the way Greg would occasionally glare at him through the rearview mirror.

He’d broken one of the most important rules with his sleepwalking adventure. He’d interrupted Greg’s sleep, probably, or at the very least, inconvenienced him and his time. The rule may have been unspoken, but just like the silence in the car, very real, very apparent, to everyone except May.

Or maybe she wasn’t clueless, maybe she was just pretending she didn’t notice the tension, the way Greg parked crooked in the driveway, then slammed his car door shut when got out of the car.

“Let’s do our ice cream day today, Pete, how ‘about it?” asked May, as they stepped inside the house, with all the fake brightness in her voice. It wasn’t genuine, but it still contrasted against Greg. 

“So you’re just going to reward him for bad behavior?” asked Greg. He slammed the house door, too.

“It’s not rewarding bad behavior,” said May. “It wasn’t his fault. He was sleepwalking.”

“That’s bullshit, and you know it,” said Greg. “Little shit’s been sneaking out.”

“He has not- “ 

“Don’t be stupid, May, like the Starks. We’re barely surviving, trying to feed and house this kid and he’s so selfish and ungrateful he’s trying to sneak back off to the where he’s spoiled, where he’s got it easy.” 

“That’s not true,” said Peter.

Greg glared at him. For a split second, his eyes flickered down to Tony’s watch on Peter’s wrist, then back up at Peter.

“Maybe it isn’t,” said Greg, his voice softer, his anger and frustration disappeared, almost like magic, like a switch had been flipped. “But none of this would be so stressful if May would just do as I asked her and have Stark pay child support.” 

May released a long, slow breath, and Peter had a feeling he was stumbling into a very old argument.

“Tony isn’t his father, Greg,” said May. “Something we were both very clear about when you were encouraging me to get him back.”

Peter blinked, and the room went silent again. They were both wrong, but at least Peter knew the truth, the reason he was really here. He was just a ticket for Greg to make a grab at some extra cash, and something else for May. A trophy, maybe, someone who lived with her so she could look at him and didn’t have to feel guilty about pawning him off.

Greg and May glared at each other, and the floorboards creaked under Peter’s shuffling feet.

“We can’t do this in front of him,” said May, causing Greg to back up to the staircase and mutter something under his breath, before retreating upstairs. Once he was completely gone, May turned around, put her head up and shot Peter with another fake smile. “So, how about it? Ice Cream?” 

“Yeah, sure,” said Peter, but he was talking to her back. She had already turned again and walked off towards the kitchen.

They sat down on the couch with giant bowls of ice cream, switched on the TV, and pretended like nothing had happened. That they were back in Queens and May didn’t know about Spider-Man and she hadn’t given him away to Tony. 

Or, at least, that’s what Peter tried to do. 

He didn’t believe anything could ever be the way it was before. They were different people, trying to do the same old things, afraid of losing something between them that was long gone and not coming back, and Peter didn’t want it, too. 

He wanted his family with Tony and Pepper. He wanted to go back to his bedroom, while it was still his bedroom, before Tony gave up on him and decided to turn it back into a guestroom.

Peter glanced at May, who’s eyes were peeled on the screen, and wondered how he could ever get out of this, how he could leave her without crushing her. If there was anything he wouldn’t wish on anyone, it was the grief that came with being abandoned.

*

The next morning, Peter was locked away in his bedroom, sitting on his floor in the middle of an ocean of textbooks and notebooks and different colored pens. Sleep was his new enemy, and he’d fought it off by studying, by making elaborate color-coded notes, by making flashcards with decathlon questions and memorizing them.

It’d been successful.

He hadn’t slept and therefore hadn’t slept walked.

A couple of empty cans of Monster littered the floor alongside his study materials. He owed his success to caffeine, for sure, and the little twenty-four gas station down the street. Peter had been starting to doze off just after midnight, and, after striping himself of anything valuable, most importantly Tony’s watch, so he wouldn’t get mugged, he made the walk to buy himself some energy.

It was almost time to make that walk again, though. His eyes were having trouble focusing, the words of his flashcards danced around. He was straining his eyes when he heard a knock on the front door, then he pulled himself up into a sitting position and strained his ears. 

“Pepper,” said May, from down below, after the door opened with a creak. “What are you doing here?” 

“I brought over some more of Peter’s things,” she told May. It was nice to hear her voice, even from one floor above. “And I just thought, I thought we might be able to talk, privately.”

“Oh, okay. Sure,” said May, with hesitance.

The door shut, and there was more shuffling of feet. Something hit the floor, leaving Peter to guess it was whatever Pepper had brought over for him, maybe a bag of something. He didn’t know. He couldn’t imagine what was so important that Pepper Potts needed to hand deliver it to him, on a Sunday.

An excuse to check up on them, maybe. A Tony-ish scheme carried out by someone with a little more grace and tack.

“Tony’s really worried,” said Pepper, straight to the point, in the kindest way possible. Peter missed that, her gentle honesty. “He’s worried about what could happen if he sleep walks again, and I am, too.” 

“I appreciate your concern,” said May. “But really, it hasn’t happened before, I don’t think it’ll happen again. He was fine last night.” 

Peter looked around his bedroom floor. Manic studying, it was fine. Caffeine dosing, that was fine, too, except he had a feeling neither Pepper nor Tony would agree. This probably wasn’t what Tony had in mind when he made him promise to keep up with his school work. 

“Peter’s master about hiding how he really feels, especially if he’s trying to protect someone from getting hurt.”

“What are you trying to say?”

“That Tony and I think it’d be a good idea to get him into therapy,” said Pepper “And the whole family, actually. I think we should find a family therapist, and maybe set up a schedule.”

“…a schedule?” 

“For where Peter spends his time, and when.” 

It was simple, but Peter had never thought of that before. He didn’t stop to think that he could actually have both, that if didn’t have to be one or the other. He could have _both._ Both. A compromise. He’d only have to be miserable part of the time, and he’d heard anything so wonderful in a long time. His bliss didn’t last long, though. 

May wasn’t interested in compromises. 

“So, you think I’m the problem?” 

“No I didn’t say- “ 

“-you think he slept walked over there, to get away from me?” 

“You’re putting words in my mouth,” said Pepper, composed, still gentle, besides May but anything but that. 

“You and Tony think you know what’s best for him more than I do,” said May. “But he’s my nephew, I’ve known him since he was a baby. He’s family and I know what’s best for him, and what’s best is for you and Tony to stay out of it.” 

“May- “

“-you should go,” said May. “I’ll make sure he gets his stuff.” 

“Just think about it,” said Pepper, as feet walked across the downstairs floor. “I think we both know what an unhappy kid looks like.” 

The door shut, and Peter scrambled to his feet. He ran to his window, getting there just in time to see Pepper get into a car. He put his palm on the glass as she drove away and watched until her black car turned off the road and was out of sight. 

He turned around, sharp and sudden, and scurried towards his bedroom door. If Pepper left something for him, he needed to get to it before Greg got his hands on it, and that’s when he stopped, with his hand on the doorknob, when his thoughts went to Greg and the way he loved money and the way he had looked at Tony’s watch.

The watch that Peter wasn’t wearing, that he’d taken off and put on his bed over walking to the gas station. The watch that was no longer on his bed. The watch that was missing.His watch was missing. _Tony’s_ watch was missing.

His breath caught, and the room spun, but then his panic exploded into anger. At May. At Greg. At himself, because he threw away a family for someone who was never going to do the same for him. He took a steadying breath, trying to calm and quiet all the thoughts screaming at him, and decided that, maybe, May would this time, like when she stood up for him the day before.  

Maybe he should give her one last chance. 

He found her and Greg in the kitchen, talking low voices, standing way too close to each other for Peter to believe their argument from yesterday was still going on. 

“Where’s my watch?” asked Peter, although it was more of an accusation than it was question, as well as an interruption. Peter didn’t care. Whatever they were talking about wasn’t as important as this felt.

May opened her mouth, then closed, seeming to change her mind. The smug expression on Greg’s face was an answer, but it wasn’t enough. Peter needed to hear it, out loud.

“Where it is?”

“I sold it,” said Greg, simply. “I figured since we’re not getting child support, we could use the extra cash to help us get by. It’s worth more in bills than it is to tell time, right? Who uses watches anymore when we have smartphones?”

Peter looked away from Greg without response and aimed his attention to May, instead.

“He sold my watch.”

She still didn’t say anything. Just stood there, next to Greg, making it clear that this time, she was taking his side. 

“Aren’t you going to do anything?” Peter pressed on, anyway, trying to keep the shake out of his voice, trying to keep tears from his eyes. Both he blamed on being so, so tired, tired in a way sleep probably couldn’t fix. “He stole my watch.” 

“Honey, he didn’t exactly steal it,” said May. “It was in his house, and this way we’ll have some extra money… we’ll get you another one.” 

Another one. A different watch just like months ago when he broke his cellphone and Tony got him a new one. He didn’t want another one, and he was tired of explaining to everyone that it just wasn’t the same, that it wasn’t ever really about cellphones or watches.

So he didn’t. 

He turned his back and stomped up the stairs, into his room, where he collapsed down on his bed and shoved his face in his pillow. There wasn’t any more caffeine to keep him awake, but that was okay. It was alright to sleep. He hoped, as he let his eyes shut, that when he woke up, it’d be the first day of school again, that everything up until that point had just been a twisted dream and May had stayed gone.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhhh thank you guys so much! the responses to this story have been incredible, I'm glad so many people love reading it as much as I love writing it!! ilysm 
> 
> im hoping to have chapter 8 out next weekday, probably Sunday, so like 9 days! ! !


	8. truth and lies

Peter tossed, and turned, and wrestled with his blanket, but he never fell asleep. Not completely. He hovered in a half-sleep, going back and forth between reality and dreams, switching between being furious that his watch was gone and grieving because there would never be another one like it.

He was haunted by what he lost, what was _stolen_ from him, but then his nightmares changed, and he was haunted by who he lost instead. Ben Parker faded in and out, flickering, like a radio with a bad connection.

Sometimes Ben was generous and warm – just like Peter remembered when his head was clear, and he was wide awake.

Sometimes Ben was sad like his nightmare weeks ago and moving in with May hadn’t fixed that. He was still sad, definitely disappointed. Peter didn’t have the remedy for it. He’d tried his best, but in the end, it hadn’t been up to just him.

Sometimes Ben was angry, furious not at Peter, but _for_ Peter, the same way Tony had been that day in the car, when he found out May had catapulted herself back into his life. Angry Ben was Peter’s favorite. Imagining him coming back from the grave and haunting Greg was a good enough goodnight story for Peter to be still in his bed, to just barely reach that deep, dark place of rest. 

But then, his alarm rang. His eyes snapped opened. He was fully awake and knew all those versions of Ben were imaginary. Ben was dead. He wasn’t a ghost. He wasn’t coming back for him. He wasn’t warm or sad or angry, he was just gone. Not completely unlike May. She wasn’t coming back, either, only pretended to.

He wiped tears off his cheeks with his sleeve and sat up, way too fast. The room spun, his vision blurred, and his hands shook, but he ignored all that. He threw his legs over the bed and stood up anyway. 

Monday morning, time for school. Ben had taught him to honor his promises, and it was twice as important to honor Tony’s. It was the last thing he had left to hang onto. It couldn’t be stolen and sold the same way a watch could.

Tony wasn’t dead. It was a thought that played on repeated over and over again as Peter got dressed, as he brushed his teeth and grabbed his bookbag, and ran down the stairs. Pepper wasn’t dead, either. Just across town. He’d made the wrong choice. He’d traded his family for something lifeless, something that belonged on a shelve.   

On his way out of the house, he didn’t both grabbing anything for breakfast. He was the kind of hungry that wanted food but also didn’t want food, the kind of hungry that was all sharp pains, telling him if he did try to eat, he’d probably just puke it all back up, anyway.  

School didn’t help. It was too loud. It was all slamming lockers, metal screeching against metal, students talking over each other, bouncing off the walls. He went to straight to class, shoved himself in his desk, hoping it might get quiet, but it just got worse.

Even after the bell rang, even after their teacher shushed them and the chattering died out, the noise in his head was cranked up and he couldn’t control the volume. 

_the watch is gone the watch is gone you lost Tony’s watch_

“Dude are you okay?” Ned whispered, from the desk next to him. “You’re looking kind of… sick.” 

He didn’t answer. 

Peter, instead, tried to focus on the car alarm that was sounding, somewhere outside, tried to be anywhere at all that wasn’t there in that classroom, or there, trapped in his own head, with the record stuck on repeat. He shut his eyes, shoved his elbows up on his desk and used them to prop up his head, placing his hands over his ears. It didn’t help.

His legs started to bounce, the lights were too bright, and he couldn’t take it anymore. He put his hand up and asked to be excused, not bothering to wait for an answer before bolting from his chair and out into the hallway, where the walls were narrower and seemed to be closing in. 

He staggered his way to the bathroom, just barely making it into a stall, falling down on his knees just in time to choke up stomach acid. 

Once he was finished, he scooted backwards, out of the stall, but stayed sitting on the bathroom floor. He put his head between his knees, his back against the wall, and cried, hoping that by some miracle no one would walk in on him while he wrecked his brain.

He couldn’t go back to Brooklyn. He couldn’t go back to that house and pretended that everything was okay, but he couldn’t go back there and be honest, either. How much honesty could May take before she broke down? Or maybe, that was just a lie, from Greg, to get him to move in, because he thought it’d mean a payout.   

Peter didn’t have a home. Not anymore. It was just him and the bathroom floor, a disgusting place that he couldn’t convince himself to leave.

He didn’t know how long he sat there, like that, head between his knees, but it was long enough to be interrupted. 

The door squeaked open, and Peter lifted his head, quickly rubbed at his eyes, hoping that whoever was about to come through the door wasn’t the type to start rumors, or just… wasn’t Flash, but as it turned out, he didn’t have anything to worry about. 

Tony stepped through the door and Peter felt a wave of relief spread through him, like warm blanket on a cold day.

“Tony,” said Peter, a shake in his voice. He looked up at him, as the man walked over and lowered himself to floor. “What are you doing here?” 

“Ned texted me,” said Tony. “Do you wanna explain what’s got him so worried? Or why we’re sitting here on this disgusting floor?” 

Peter wanted to laugh, but instead he cried. He dove his head down into Tony’s chest and wrapped his arms around him and knew he wouldn’t be able to let go. He wasn’t going back to Brooklyn. He was going to stay there forever, and when he felt Tony’s hug him back, he knew that he could, that Tony still wanted him. 

“I’m sorry,” said Peter, into Tony’s suit jacket. 

“For what?” 

“I screwed up, and I… I lost your watch.” 

“Oh kid… that’s okay, we’ll find it.” 

Peter shook his head. They wouldn’t, they couldn’t, who knew where Greg sold it, or who he sold it to, and Peter didn’t plan on sticking around him long enough to find out. Seeing Tony again, hugging him, crying on him, that was all he needed, all he needed to make a decision. 

“I want to go home.” 

“Alright, okay,” said Tony. “I’ll drive you home.”

Peter lifted his head and looked Tony in his eyes. “No. I need to _come home_ , to the penthouse, with you and Pepper.”

“Oh, thank god,” said Tony, as he let out a breath. He put his hand through Peter’s hair and guided his head back to rest on his chest. “It was getting harder and harder to pretend I was okay with all this.” 

“Why did you? Pretend?”

“Some things you have to learn for yourself. I didn’t want you to torture yourself, with what could’ve been, or resent me, because I never let you figure it out,” said Tony. “Besides, I always knew you’d make the right decision, eventually.” 

Peter wasn’t sure what he ever did to warrant Tony’s trust, but he was glad to have it. He stayed nestled against Tony, perfectly content to stay there like that and hear the quiet and let sleep come for him. He could fall asleep there, no problem, and maybe he would have, but his stomach growled, funny and loud, making Peter realize the pains in his stomach left when Tony had arrived. 

“You hungry, kid?”

“Yeah, just a little.” 

“… when was the last time you ate?”

“Umm,” said Peter. He rearranged his head, trying not to smile at how quickly things slid back to normal, how fast Tony resumed his regular scheduled helicoptering. “… I had a monster yesterday.” 

“A _what?”_ asked Tony. He lifted Peter up and away from him by his shoulders. “We’re going home and you’re going to eat actual food instead of chugging down caffeine and then you’re going to take a nap. You look like you haven’t slept in years.”

“I was afraid to sleep,” said Peter, watching Tony as he stood, then accepted his hand-up. He intentionally left out the part about being too angry to sleep. Maybe Tony wasn’t ready to hear that yet. “I didn’t want to sleepwalk again.”

“You really think I would’ve let that happen a second time? I set up some surveillance bots around May’s place, if you would’ve slipped into zombie mode I would’ve known within seconds.” 

“Oh…” Peter followed Tony out of the bathroom and let the door drop shut behind them. “Thank god.” 

Tony laughed and put his arm around him as they walk to the front office, where Tony signed him out of the school, and left through the main doors. Tony’s car was parked out front, waiting for them. It was the best thing Peter had seen in a long time, the car that would take him home.  

* * *

 

“So,” said Tony. “Where did you last have your watch? We can retrace your steps and find it.”

Peter shoveled a spoon full of soup in his mouth, savoring it, taking his time, so he could avoid answering Tony’s question. He was hesitant to reveal the truth. He didn’t want to think about May or Greg or his lost watch. He just wanted to be there, in the moment, sitting in the kitchen, talking to Tony.

He missed talking to Tony. Just being around him, really. He was safety, in person form, and Peter hadn’t realized it until he walked into that bathroom, hadn’t realized how ungrounded and anxious he’d been without him.

His soup didn’t buy him much time, though. Tony stared at him from the other side of the table, an expectant look plastered across his face. 

 _He knew_. Somehow, Tony knew something was off about his story, and the look on his face told Peter he was determined to get to the bottom of it. It was no use, then, stalling or lying. The truth was the only way. 

“I didn’t exactly lose it,” admitted Peter. “Greg kind of stole it.”

“Excuse me, what?” 

“Peter!” Pepper walked into the kitchen, her heels clicked against the floor. She pressed a kiss against his hair from behind. “I’m hoping that since you’re here and it’s daylight hours, it means you’re back for good.” 

“Yeah, I am.” 

“Good,” said Pepper, walking to Tony’s side of the table and into Peter’s view. She grinned at him. “It was getting a little boring around here.”  

“Hey,” said Tony, but even Pepper couldn’t distract him for longer than a couple of seconds. “Pete, what were you saying?” 

Peter swirled his soup around with his spoon, only to drop it and let it slide against the rim of the bowl. “Uh, he kind of sold it, because May wouldn’t ask you to pay child support, I needed to earn my way somehow.” 

The kitchen went silent. Tony’s face went tight, then started switching, and Pepper watched him with concern. Peter was concerned, too. He thought maybe he was having a heart attack, or a stroke, or maybe a brain aneurysm, and there was a strange satisfaction in that. Some kind of validation Peter didn’t know he needed until he had it. 

Tony was speechlessly angry, and so Peter felt like he had a right to be angry about his watch, too. That it _was_ stolen, no matter how May justified it or tried to say that it wasn’t really actually stealing.   

Tony stood up from his chair. “He’s dead – “ 

“-Tony,” started Pepper. “Maybe you should- “

“Oh relax, you know I don’t really mean dead. Maybe just a bit mangled with a few broken limbs, he has to be alive to feel the pain and all that,” said Tony. His eyes fell back on Peter, as he stopped on his way towards the foyer, towards the elevator. “Try to get some sleep, okay? I’m going to go get your stuff and have a chat with Greg.” 

He marched off, and Peter jumped up from his seat. He wasn’t ready to be away from Tony yet, even if it was just the short amount of time it took him to go to Brooklyn and retrieve all of Peter’s belongings and probably also beat someone up. Peter followed Tony to the elevator, and Pepper followed Peter. 

“Tony wait!” 

He paused, his hand hovering in front of the call button. 

“I just thought we could watch a few movies?” asked Peter. “To help me sleep. I’ve been having trouble-“ 

“-Tony,” said Pepper. “Stay here and watch movies with your son, he misses you.”

Tony’s eyes flickered back and forth between them, then he relented. “Yeah, okay, let’s watch some movies.” 

So they did what Peter wanted, and forgot all about Greg and May, pushed them to the side where Pete was determined they should stay. He sat on the couch, between his parents and snuggled into Tony’s side, and did his best not to feel the dread about the inevitable confrontation. Instead, he focused on Star Wars, and Tony’s fingers mindlessly working their way through his hair, lulling him to sleep. 

He shut his eyes. Sleep came for him fast. 

* * *

When he woke up, he was laying long ways on the couch. Someone had put a pillow under his head and a pillow over his body, and there were voices. Angry voices. Peter sat up, and looked over the back of the couch, where Tony, Pepper, Greg and May were standing just a few feet away. 

Greg passed Tony one of Peter’s duffel bags. 

“Should I go through it? Make sure everything’s in there?” 

“Come on, Stark, you don’t actually believe – “

“-my kid doesn’t lie,” said Tony, with absolute certainty. “Not about shit like this.”   

Peter gripped the back of the couch, waiting for May to interject and tell Tony what he already knew, that Peter wasn’t lying. She had been there. She knew, but she didn’t say anything. Just stood next to Greg, with her eyes racing around the room, and continued to let him on go telling a lie no one believed.

“Where is it? Where did you sell it?” demanded Tony, after the room had gotten quiet.

“I didn’t take your precious child’s watch,” said Greg. May was still silent, her eyes went back and forth between Greg and Tony, who’s fist was twitching. “Maybe if you two would stop treating him like he was a prince, he wouldn’t be such a little bitch about ever – “ 

Greg didn’t finish his sentence. Pepper had put herself between him and Tony and knocked him a good one in the side of his nose. He yelped, stumbled backwards, and put his hand to his nose, which was gushing blood, all over the carpet. 

May stayed still. Tony looked back and forth between Greg and Pepper, lost somewhere between extreme jealousy and being completely in love with his wife, and Peter, taking everything in, laughed. 

He regretted it immediately. 

Peter gained the attention of all the adults in the room, except Greg’s, who was still fussing over his bleeding nose. Peter locked eyes with May, who’s face fell, who looked away in an instant, to direct her attention back to Tony. 

“Can I have a few minutes alone with him?” she asked. 

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” 

“No, Tony, it’s okay,” said Peter, scrambling off the couch, keeping his eyes on May. “We should… we should talk.” 

Tony still didn’t look happy about it, but he nodded his agreement, and Peter and May went back to Peter’s bedroom. It was exactly the same as Peter had left it before moving in with May and Greg. He couldn’t wait until all this was over, until he was just home, in his room, without May looking at him with a titled head and fake concern. 

The lights had switched on as they entered, and Peter wished that they wouldn’t have. He would rather have this conversation in the dark. 

“Peter… is this what your really want?” asked May, looking around the room. “This is your decision?”

“Who’s else would it be?” 

“Well, Tony’s,” she told him. “It was just… sudden. One minute I’m at work thinking about what to make for dinner, then the next Tony is calling me, telling me he wants to set up a time to come get your things.” 

“Sudden?” he repeated. “Like, you ditching me and moving across the country?”

“Peter – “ 

“-No, it’s the truth. I’m tired of not saying what’s on my mind because it might upset you. It’s what happened and it’s what you did, and you keep talking about Tony like he’s the bad guy when he’s the one who’s actually been here… and, he let me decide for myself, which is more than you did.” 

“What does that mean?” 

“It doesn’t matter,” said Peter. “Just don’t pretend like this is all on Tony, when you’re the one who left, and you wouldn’t even talk to me- “ 

“-I thought it would make things easier.” 

“For who, exactly?” asked Peter. “And it didn’t. You wouldn’t even call me when I was in the hospital, then you just showed up out of nowhere and pretended nothing happened, but I’m tired of pretending I’m not still angry just because it might make things harder on you with your depression.” 

“What?” asked May, and the tone caught Peter off guard. It was said with genuine surprise and confusion. “That’s why you moved – what?” She bunched up her face, shook her head and took a couple of steps backwards. “Never mind, I should just go.” 

She bolted from the room, leaving Peter shocked for a couple of seconds before he snapped out of it and followed her. 

“Wait, May,” he said, as he trailed her back into the main room, where Greg had a cloth pressed up against his nose and Tony and Pepper were happily ignoring him.

She ignored Peter, pulled Greg towards the elevator by his arm, and muttered a few dismissive goodbyes to Tony and Pepper, before the two of them disappeared into the elevator. Peter watched the doors slid shut, feeling hollowed out, in a good way. 

He’d told May the truth, he’d gotten everything off his chest, and now he was empty, and a little sad. He never really wanted this. He wanted Tony and Pepper _and_ May, but he couldn’t imagine ever seeing her again, or at least her being in his life, after everything that had happened. 

Peter turned, and with a few steps, put himself back in Tony’s arms, planted his head below his shoulder. 

“You did good, kid,” said Tony

He hoped he was right, and he hoped if heaven was real, and Ben was looking down on them, that he’d forgive him, that he’d understand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, I'm gonna try to have the last chapter of this posted next weekend, so at the earliest Friday and the latest Sunday, but don't quote me because I've been working on my next irondad bingo for about two weeks and I'm just ready to put all my focus there so I can be free of it 
> 
> and thanks so much for reading!! the responses for this story have been so great and I love you all!!


	9. epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *** last chapter I think at one point I referred to Pepper as Tony's wife and it was still just fiancee, so please don't be confused because that's like, a detail in this epilogue... anyways, enjoy!

Peter’s toes were in the sand, and he was soaked. 

It was raining and he didn’t really care, at least not enough to go back into the hotel room and grab some rain gear. It was a soft rain, anyway. A soft, golden rain, with the sun still out, shining over the ocean and through the raindrops as they shattered into the sand and on the waves.

He’d read once that it was called orphan’s tears when the sun was shining and the rain was falling, but he could never really wrap his head around how something so beautiful could have such a sad name. 

He didn’t want to think about it. How something could be sad but beautiful, how something could be one way but also another. 

He walked towards the water, chucks of wet sand were flipped up by his sandals as he edged closer. The beaches off the Canary Islands were different, somehow, than the ones off Coney Island, or even the ones near the beach house back in Malibu. Peter supposed that was the idea. 

They had decided to escape the city for Christmas break that year. Peter hadn’t liked the idea at first. It’d been spontaneous, and the result of a weather report predicting an arctic freeze blowing through the east coast. Spiders didn’t do well in freezing temperatures and Peter didn’t do well with Tony fussing at him about giant coats and scarves and a pair of actual mittens he’d tried to come at him with, so they ended up getting on the jet and flying somewhere warm.

Christmas outside the city was odd. Didn’t really feel like Christmas, but on his last day there, Peter didn’t want to leave it behind.

It’d grown on him. 

He blamed Tony. He just walked around smiling, so damn happy, calling it their ‘familymoon’ since it was their first getaway as a legally recognized family, since the day Tony and Pepper had their wedding and Peter officially became a Stark. 

They had gotten dressed up in suits and ties, and Pepper wore a simple, elegant white dress. Peter watched with Happy and Rhodey as Tony and Pepper exchanged vows inside the court building downtown. When they finished, they rushed into an elevator, rode it up to another floor, ran through some hallways and finally, inside a courtroom, where a judge signed papers and he officially became their son. 

Often, Tony said that was the happiest day of his life, and often, Peter felt guilty, because it wasn’t his. It had been a beautiful day, but for Peter, it had also been sad, and that was okay, or at least, that’s what his therapist kept trying to explain, over and over again.

“Tony’s never had a real family,” she had told him. “He got a wife and a son, all in one day, but you’ve had two families and lost them both.”

It did make sense, but Peter still felt guilty. He tried not to, tried to focus on how happy Tony and Pepper were, despite him not always feeling the same way. 

He adjusted his feet in the sand and settled on a spot where the waves just barely licked his toes. 

“Pete.”

He turned in place, and saw Tony standing behind him, wearing a rain jacket with the hood up. 

“Ready?” he asked. “Jet’s supposed to leave in fifteen.” 

“Yeah, I’m coming,” said Peter. He gave the ocean, the rain, and the golden sky one last look, before following Tony back up the path to the hotel, where they grabbed their bags and headed to the airport.

* 

“Maybe next time we can fly public,” said Peter, climbing on to the jet, and tossing his bags off to the side. 

“Excuse me what the hell?” asked Tony, while Pepper laughed. 

Peter didn’t see why it was a scandalous thing to say, or why it was funny. He’d only ever been in the air on one of Tony’s private planes, and now that his last name was Stark, he figured he missed his chance at public air travel. 

He took a seat at a table by the window, and Tony sat down across from him. Pepper went off to one of the couches on the opposite end of the jet, to catch up on emails, but really, Peter suspected, she was going to nap.

“It’d be fun,” said Peter, leaning back in the chair. “Like an adventure.”

“Getting sneezed on and having my personal space invaded by strangers is not my idea of fun and adventure.” 

Peter shrugged. “Could be.” 

“Nope,” said Tony. “That’s an adventure you’re taking on your own.” 

They waited until the plane took off, and until they were at cruising altitude, to pull out the chess board and set it up on the table between them. It’s something they had started doing in their downtime after Peter came back home from May’s. Tony didn’t let him win anymore, like he did during their first stay in Malibu, and Peter liked it better that way. He liked to believe each time he lost he was just one step closer to actually beating Tony Stark at chess. 

Not during this flight, though. It wasn’t the day Peter would beat Tony at chess. Not even close. He was barely even paying attention as Tony took his king.

“Do you know where it went wrong?” asked Tony, as Peter stared at the board. 

They did this, too, every time. Talk out the bad moves, learn from them, and by now, Peter was sure he could beat the captain of his school’s chess team. Looking at board, he had no idea where the mistakes were, and he didn’t have the mindset to go back and replay his memory.

He released a breath, and let his head hit the side of the plane. “No.”

“Something on your mind?” Tony shuffled some pieces around the board, sliding them back into place for round two. 

“No, I don’t know, maybe,” said Peter. “I guess… I guess I just miss May.” 

It hit him at odd moments. Like grief always seemed to do, and as they left their vacation and were headed back to New York, where May was and wasn’t, it hit especially hard. 

“I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t – I really love living with you and Pepper, but I do miss her.” 

“You don’t have to apologize, of course you do,” said Tony. “That’d be like expecting yourself not to miss Ben or your parents.” 

“Yeah I know, I guess, it’s just harder, when they’re still alive." 

“I suppose it is,” said Tony, pausing for a few seconds, before swiping his arm across the table and sending the chess board, and the pieces, flying onto the floor. “Enough of that. Teach me how to video game.” 

Peter immediately frowned. “Please don’t do this.” 

He sensed it was coming. Tony’s intentionally uncool dad act. He claimed it was his duty to be embarrassing, now that he was a dad. 

“Come on, let’s play on your Nintendo Shift.” 

“Oh my god,” said Peter, putting his head in his hands. He was just glad that this time no one was around to witness it. Peter was so close to banning Tony for decathlon mets, and was thankful for Pepper, who stopped him from showing up in a Peter Parker fan shirt he had made. Peter sat up straight and looked at Tony. “… you really wanna play?” 

“Sure,” said Tony. “Let’s play.”

Peter rolled his eyes, but smiled, as he took the Switch from his bag and set it up on the table. He slid Tony a joy con, taught him how to play Mario Karts, and destroyed him at it, until they were both too tired and had to follow Pepper’s lead and sleep. 

*

They had been home just a couple of weeks when Peter got the letter. 

He walked off the elevator, and went straight to kitchen for after school snack, but stopped in his tracks when he saw Tony sitting at the kitchen table, a plain white envelope in his hands.

“Looks like she misses you, too,” said Tony, as he slipped it into his hands.

Peter looked at it and flipped it over. Read the Brooklyn return address. Probably it was that same house he stayed with her and Greg in. He didn’t know. He hadn’t cared to learn the address the short time he lived there, or maybe he had, but just forgot. 

“Maybe,” said Peter, with a frown. He changed route from the fridge and headed off to his bedroom, instead, seeking some privacy. 

He threw his bookbag down on the floor and laid face up on his bed. He tore the top of the envelope open his thumb, eventually tossing it aside, to get to the letter. 

He read it over and over again, but still couldn’t fully believe what he was reading. They were… exactly what he wanted to hear, only a few months too late to sink in and have effect. 

May apologized. She took responsibility for everything that happened, even all the bullshit that was, in Peter’s opinion, Greg’s to take responsibility for. 

She said that she missed, and she explained her side, about why she left. That it was never because she hated Spider-Man, but because she was afraid to lose the boy under the mask. Peter understood, or at least he thought he did. They had just lost Ben. She was grieving. 

Still, Peter wished she would’ve called or written, wished he would’ve gotten to read her words signed with her love a long time ago.

He flipped it over to the backside, as if expecting to find something else, but there wasn’t anything there. It was blank.

It wasn’t enough. He wondered if it would ever be enough.

Tony knocked on the door with the back of his hand. “Everything okay?” 

“Yeah, everything’s good,” said Peter, sitting up, letting the letter fall from his hands and float down to the floor by his bed. “When’s Rhodey getting here?” 

Tony and Pepper were going away for the weekend, for their actual honeymoon, and Rhodey was coming over to hang out with him. He wasn’t stupid. He knew Tony had used hang out to make it sound better than you’re-sixteen-but-you’re-still-getting-a-babysitter, but Peter didn’t actually mind.

Rhodey had promised him stories about Tony’s MIT days, and Peter was eager for blackmail material. 

“Uh, soon, probably.” Tony eyed him suspiciously. “What are you two gonna do while we’re away?” 

“…nothing.”

Tony narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms. “You know, he’s the boring one, right? He’s going to have you in bed by ten and eating your vegetables.”

“He wouldn’t betray me like that,” said Peter. “Besides, I’m sixteen, I’m not afraid of vegetables.” 

“Uh huh. But you _are_ afraid of healthy sleeping habits.” 

_Like father, like son_

The phrase almost left his mouth, but he stopped himself, and just smiled instead, watching as Tony walked out of his doorway.

The letter got kicked under his bed. 

He thought about it a few times. Even thought about fishing it out and reading it again, but never for long enough to act on those thoughts, so under his bed it stayed, collecting dust.

* 

It was months later when he thought maybe he should’ve read the letter a few more times.

He was in the middle of a decathlon met, just seconds away from slamming the button down and answering a question, when his eyes caught a woman sitting in the back of the auditorium. 

Unmistakably, it was May. She sat alone, in the very back row, and Peter was surprised when warmth spread through his chest, when he was happy to see her there.

It was _good_ to see her there. He gave her a smile, then his eyes flicked to Tony and Pepper, before he shoved them all to the back of his mind and refocused on the met. 

Once it was over, Peter rushed off stage, dodging parents and teachers in the audience, trying to get to the back of the auditorium before his aunt left. He got there just in time, just as May’s fingers were gazing the door. 

“May,” said Peter, stopping her. 

“Peter,” said she back, looking around, shuffling her feet, her hand still on the door. “I’m sorry for coming, I just needed to see how – “ 

“No, it’s okay, I mean it’s great. It’s good to see you.” 

“It’s good to see you, too,” said May, with a smile. “You were doing pretty good up there, like always.” 

“Thanks.” An awkward silence fell, and Peter shuffled his feet too, looking around. He fiddled with Tony’s watch on his wrist, like it was about to be stolen again. Tony had had to buy it back from a pawnshop in Brooklyn, after personally searching through five or six stores just to find it. 

“Well I should get going.” She started to open the door. “Maybe… I’ll see you, at the next met?” 

“Yeah… yeah I’d like that.”

May nodded her head, and her smile lit up her whole face. It’d been ages since Peter had seen that exact smile. It had been since Ben died and Peter had thought they buried that along with him. But maybe they didn’t. Maybe there were still parts him and the Parkers that lived on, even if Peter didn’t have that same exact last name anymore. 

“Okay, I’ll be there.” 

She disappeared through the double doors, and when Peter turned, Tony and Pepper were staring, faces crinkled with concern. Peter couldn’t help an eyeroll, and a laugh, as he marched towards them, to explain that they worried too much. 

Peter, for one, wasn’t worried.

Everything seemed a bit brighter, a bit lighter. He had a family, and his family had him, and now, he had a May, now, too. He didn’t know what that meant. If their relationship would ever be anything more than seeing her in the audience at decathlon meets, but he had hope, and he had Tony’s words replaying in his head over and over again, ones whispered to him that night he got drunk and almost accidently killed himself with crab melt.

It was gonna be alright.  _He_ was gonna be alright.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, listen, this was supposed to be the end bbbuuuttt my daydreams spawned up 3 more one-shots for this, so if you want this to be the end of the series, then that works but if you want to keep reading just think of them as an extended epilogue?? always it'll be a minute until I post the first one so here's a sneak peak / list of what they will be 1. Peter throws a house party 2. focused on Peter and pepper 3. road trip 
> 
> and also THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH, I can't believe the support this series and this section of in specific got but I love you guys so much, seriously, it has been amazing ! ! 
> 
> AND if you're looking for something to read please go read [my latest irondad bingo](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20388265%20rel=)  
>  (just head the tags and the tws first)

**Author's Note:**

> come and follow me on Tumblr if you want 
> 
> [hailing-stars](https://hailing-stars.tumblr.com)


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